


black and gold

by Ruriruri



Category: KISS (US Band), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruriruri/pseuds/Ruriruri
Summary: “We thought if we brought everything else back, the audience would accept that part of it was gone.” Gene closed his eyes. “We thought it was about the lineup and the makeup and the stageshow. We thought the superhero thing was just what appealed to the kids.”“We hoped that.”
Relationships: Gene Simmons/Paul Stanley, Peter Criss/Ace Frehley
Comments: 28
Kudos: 20





	1. if the fish swam out of the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something ever so slightly different here with shorter chapters. Most of the prequel is already completed; as usual, it's more a matter of paring down than it is adding! I would recommend reading at least the first chapter of "the end of the road tour" before starting on this one to minimize confusion, although as the chapters progress, ideally that won't be necessary. KISS has been a part of Marvel Comics since the 1970's, and actually starred in Marvel's first all-color comic. Their powers, characterization, and backstories vary from run to run; for the sake of this my own sanity, I've lifted mostly from a haphazard mix of KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park and Scooby Doo Meets KISS for powers and the actual band for characterization (trying to fit in canon team-ups with Spider-man and the Avengers was a bit too much of an undertaking). Mistakes are mine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Not gonna help you? You’re still Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, even if the world’s on fucking fire.” Peter again, words absolutely soaked with venom. “You’ve never had a problem taking advantage of anybody. The hell are you balking for now? You too good to accept a ride from the people that made you rich?”

_october 29, 2014_

It was a banal day for the end of the world.

The lion’s share of the tour was over. The Kruise tomorrow, then the Vegas residency—then the better part of three months off. Hanukkah, Christmas—hell, Paul was even getting his birthday off, probably for the first time in ten years—he’d promised Gene would get his off next tour, not that Gene believed him. But that was all right.

He’d gone to Paul’s dressing room about five minutes after soundcheck. Something was nagging at him, something he couldn’t figure out. Paul was there, still in his regular clothes and sitting on a stool, flipping through his phone instead of working on his makeup. He never had been very fast at it. The two seconds it had taken them back in the seventies didn’t compare with the thirty or forty minutes they’d been relegated to ever since.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Paul looked up for just a moment before his head drooped back down to his phone. God, he was as bad as Nick and Sophie with the damn thing. “You need anything?”

“No. No, I don’t need anything.”

“Oh.” Paul tilted his head. “Come to wish me good luck?”

“For about the three thousandth time.”

Paul started to smile. There was something almost sad about it, and for a second, Gene was tempted to press, never mind if he got an irritated comment back—but then Paul reached over and curved his fingers around Gene’s wrist.

“There’s better ways to do that,” he said, and stood up all of a sudden, kissing him on the mouth. Not too much more than a peck, but it still caught Gene off guard at first, for all their familiarity. He’d been about to start kissing back when Paul pulled away, patting his hand. “C’mon. Meet and greet’s in an hour.”

“I know. Don’t be an asshole.”

“Don’t proposition anyone.”

“I won’t.” Gene paused. “Your whole family’s here.”

“I can’t remember that stopping you.”

“No—Shannon and the kids came, too. I thought you might want to grab dinner tomorrow, all of us.”

He didn’t quite expect Paul to agree. He knew he wouldn’t have meant anything by a refusal, either. Nine months out of the year around each other, during tours, could get pretty damn unbearable. Even after forty years of it. Maybe especially after forty years of it. Paul’s neuroses would start seeming more and more ingratiating; Eric’s antics would go from failing to get a chuckle to getting death glares, and even Tommy would start seeming servile. And while stuck on the cruise ship—well, he really wouldn’t have blamed Paul much if he wanted to have his first dinner there without him around.

Instead, Paul nodded.

“I’ll ask Erin, but yeah. Sounds like a good time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Paul slid the phone across the dressing room counter, where it bumped against the mirror on the end. “Especially if it’s your cabin.”

“Paul, you have six people in your family—”

“Seven. My dad says he wants on the ship, too.” Paul’s lip twitched. “I told him he’d never get any sleep if he came, but he insisted. He’s even seeing the concert tonight.”

“He’s here? God, when was the last time he went to one of the shows?”

“Farewell Tour, I think.”

“That long ago?”

Paul shrugged.

“He came for the same reason back then. He just wanted an excuse to see the grandkids.”

Gene nodded. He had always had the less than vague suspicion that Paul’s father wasn’t much for his profession. Or, maybe more accurately, the man just didn’t like watching his son shake his ass in front of ten thousand people a night. Mr. Eisen hadn’t ever mentioned it to Gene’s face, but he also hadn’t really had to. The low, raspy, “Stan, I wouldn’t” he had heard out of him on occasion, and Paul’s grimaces and eyerolls in response, said plenty. Paul shifted and sat back down, fingers reaching for his phone again, almost on automatic. About the least-subtle cue Gene had seen from him in a long time.

"See you in a bit," he said, before Paul could say it for him.

Paul bobbed his head and waved. Gene headed back to the rest of the band's dressing room. He talked to Eric awhile while getting into costume, yanking on the old foam and vinyl and six-inch boots. Twenty pounds of gear, allegedly-- really it was more like ten, but KISS had turned exaggeration into an art form way before Nixon pulled the last troops out of Vietnam. As lies went, it was pretty harmless.

Tommy seemed distracted, but Gene didn't call him out on it, watching him get zipped into the leotard and fasten up the front of the spacesuit. He sat down to do his makeup before too long, Eric settling in beside him, absentmindedly diving his fingers into the white greasepaint and spreading it across his face.

"Doc hasn't tried one of his pep talks in awhile."

"He knows it won't work."

Eric laughed shortly.

“The Superman curtain’s getting real faded.” He pointed the flat end of a makeup brush towards it. “What’re you going to do with it if we ever stop touring?”

“It’s already earmarked for a Butterfield auction.”

“What, really? C’mon, Gene, you’re too sentimental for that.” Eric was carving out the rectangular whiskers on his cheeks. The outline of them, anyway. Gene shifted uncomfortably.

“A Butterfield auction when he’s ninety,” Tommy corrected.

“Ninety-five. 2044.” Gene had finally reached for the clown white. The cold greasepaint wasn’t quite feeling right against his fingers. It wasn’t the first time. He wished it were the first time. “By that point, the curtain’ll be as old as I am now. Seems like a pretty good age to hand it off at.”

“Sell it off at.” Eric just shook his head.

He’d bought the bedsheet in ’78 and hung it up across the dressing room door on a whim. Almost like a tribute. A real superhero’s symbol spread all over the cloth, while they… hell, by ’78 they were already fakes; they just weren’t aware of it. Too consumed with themselves to notice how just how little of their time was spent crimefighting. By ’80, they were finished with it entirely. All that was really left now were the remnants. A curtain, some costumes, some paint. Some memories they just kept repackaging. And the show.

The show.

Gene pursed his lips. He’d outlined the batwings crooked on one side. He outlined the other side a little more heavily, to try to make up for the difference, but it just seemed to be making it worse. Another minute of fooling with it before he swiped some cold cream on the crooked portion and smeared it away entirely. Whatever. He had to focus a little better than this. Paul was in a good mood—maybe he’d have a good night, vocally—tomorrow, they’d all have dinner on the ship, and not too long after that, nearly three months off. Plenty of time to mull, if he wanted. Plenty of time to forge ahead, if he preferred.

“Gene?” It was Eric, who’d finished with the whiskers and was moving on to the eye markings. Gene had always found them weird; really, the black splotches had always reminded him more of a dog than a cat. Mateus hadn’t had them, that he remembered—

“Yeah?”

“I kind of like it better like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like that.” Eric was motioning with the brush again. Poking it against his cheek. “The bigger design’s good. Kind of reminds me of…”

He just trailed off. Gene peered in his own mirror, really looking at himself for the first time since he’d smeared away the mistake. He hadn’t redone the outline like usual. It was bigger, the winged design curvier, more elaborate, more like—

More like the way he used to do it.

He swallowed and filled in the outline, pressing in talc and translucent powder to seal it all against his face before he could give it another thought.


	2. and grew legs and they started walking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanos snapped his fingers and now we're dust.

The meet and greet crowd—the typical assortment, older Gen-Xers, the youngest of the baby boomers, and a mildly-flattering, scattered handful of college girls who’d dumped their summer savings on a picture and some guitar picks—wasn’t anything unexpected. They did a few impromptu songs, as usual, before obediently heading over to the table to start signing. For all he’d told Paul not to be an asshole earlier, Gene couldn’t help but wonder, in the back of his mind, how many of the albums and posters he was mindlessly signing would end up on ebay directly after the show. Trying to curtail the amount of stuff people were allowed to bring hadn’t ever worked, and eventually, they’d all just given up and scrawled crappier signatures the more items a single person handed over.

Gene would make conversation, usually, if the fan didn’t seem too nervous. Eric, too. Tommy still would get that surprised look on his face on the rare occasions when one of the fans struck up a conversation with him instead of Gene or Paul.

Paul wasn’t doing much talking. He was trying to save his voice for the stage, though he’d usually give up on that about ten minutes before the end of the meet and greet, or whenever a cute girl slid him his own Playgirl article to autograph. There was one, maybe two every tour that would. Gene would almost swear Paul had a sixth sense for when it was coming—a hell of a poor trade-off for the precognition he’d had during their superhero days. He’d be smiling before the chick pulled the magazine out from her bag.

He was smiling right now. Gene spared a glance away from his own solo album just to verify—yeah, there it was. That Playgirl issue. The girl—maybe twenty-five or thirty, hair dyed blue—was trying to flip to the proper pages, but Paul extended a hand and, taking the magazine, flipped to the article for her.

“Could you hold it for me?”

“ _Ohh._ S-sure!”

“Paul, I think that’s what the table’s for.” On Gene’s left, Eric was shaking his head slowly while signing a copy of _Revenge_ for a balding man with a goatee. Paul shot him an offended look, and started to talk to the girl in earnest out of spite. Gene turned his attention to the guy still in front of him. He’d already signed his solo album, made a little small talk, but the guy was still just—standing there.

Gene tensed. He glanced over at one of the bodyguards, who immediately started walking towards their table. He cleared his throat.

“Did you have something else to sign?”

The guy wasn’t looking at him. The guy wasn’t looking at anything. His hand was shaking like mad as he pointed past Gene, behind him—

“That woman over there. She disappeared. She fucking _disappeared_!”

“What are you talking about?” Gene was trying to make eye contact with the guy on automatic. To his right, Eric and Tommy both were signaling more of the bodyguards. Gene elbowed Paul, who just elbowed him back, knee-deep in some conversation about _Live to Win_ with the girl. She was still holding the Playgirl. Gene didn’t even think Paul had signed it properly yet. Shit. This could be bad. They could have a nutcase here, somebody that needed to be talked down and carried out—

“She’s gone. That woman’s gone.” The guy inhaled. “You didn’t see it.” He turned around, actually getting out of line to yell out. “Didn’t any of you _see it_?!”

The crowd just murmured at first. Two of the bodyguards approached the guy, one on either side, grabbing him by his arms before Gene could blink. Paul had yanked himself out of the conversation with the girl by that point; Gene felt his glance on him for a brief second as he signed the magazine, heard Paul briefly mumble “here.”

It was the last word Gene ever heard before the world fell apart.

The man went first, the one the bodyguards had restrained. The whole of him just started—started peeling away in pieces, like his skin was confetti. No scream. He didn’t have time to. No more than two seconds before even the pieces had turned to dust and disappeared, the bodyguards holding nothing—nothing at all—

“What the fuck—”

Then the screaming started in earnest. The whole room erupted in it, a cacophony of people trying to get out, trying to hold on, trying—there was a shuffle next to him, the thump of a magazine hitting the floor, and distantly, Gene realized that the girl, the girl Paul had signed for, she wasn’t there, either—he kicked his seat back, standing up, a couple of the handlers and bodyguards trying to surround the band like it mattered, like anything mattered when those awful dissolves kept happening, kept _happening_ —

He saw a little girl cling on to her mother as she collapsed into dust in front of her. A kid with a guide dog clench onto the leash, the dog disappearing, leaving nothing behind, not even the collar. No connection. It kept happening. It kept happening. Fifty, sixty people in less than a minute. Maybe more. Gene couldn’t even count it. Some of them were running as they fell apart, some barely had a chance to see what was happening to them. Someone nearly knocked the table over, and Gene got up and skirted around it, pushing past the bodyguards. They were dissolving like everyone else—God, oh, God, he was stepping through what seconds ago had been a person and there was nothing left, not even a particle—

He didn’t know why he kept walking. He didn’t know anything. He just couldn’t keep sitting there, couldn’t keep watching. People were bombarding him, scurrying toward him like he could help, like he could save them. They were grabbing his arm, his shoulder, pleading and sobbing, some of them dissolving against him, the pressure of their face against the armor fading to nothing at all, the swirl of dust vanishing before he could even breathe—

Someone had a megaphone. Someone was shouting about staying calm. Exits out of the building. Something—statewide, maybe nationwide, they didn’t know. Maybe some sort of biological warfare. Some kind of extraterrestrial attack. He could barely hear it over the crying. But they heard it, the crowd heard it, and some of them started to move away, let go of him and run to the doors leading out. One of the bodyguards pushed through, yanking him roughly by the arm—

“You could’ve gotten trampled.” The bodyguard’s breath, laced with cigarettes, stood out sharply somehow, as if everything was overemphasized, too harsh, too glaring. Around him people were still disappearing, whether out the exits or dissolving. It wasn’t stopping at all.

“They wouldn’t.”

“We’re taking you guys out of here.”

“Get off of me,” Gene snapped, shoving away his grip, pushing through the crowd again, back towards the table. Stupid.  _ Stupid.  _ Walking into the crowd without checking on Paul, without sparing a glance at Eric and Tommy--surely none of them would’ve left the table--he had to check--and now he was shoving through people as desperately as anyone else, still dissolving,  _ still _ \--

“ _ Paul _ !”

He was still there. He had stood up, was leaning with his shaking hands pressed against the table. Gene didn’t need to get close to know Paul was hyperventilating. There wasn’t a bodyguard or a handler there. A couple people had surrounded the table, or tried to, crammed and bottlenecked in. The crowd only started to part when Gene stepped through, and he could feel every eye on him, expectant and waiting. Like he was supposed to do something heroic. Swoop in and be amazing, But he just grabbed Paul’s shoulder.

“Paul. C’mon, c’mon. It’s okay.” And to the crowd, “Get the fuck away from him, would you?”

They scattered. Gene’s world telescoped down until he wasn’t hearing the crowd and wasn’t seeing a soul beyond Paul. His hands were still shaking. Gene pushed his chair forward, and slowly, slowly, Paul sank into it. His neck was flushed. His breathing wasn’t going back to normal. Gene started rubbing his shoulder.

“Gene…”

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Paul shook his head.

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Paul shook his head again.

“Paul, I’ll get the doctor,” Gene repeated, though he didn’t know if he could. “Where are Tommy and Eric?”

They wouldn’t have left him there. There wasn’t a way in this world they would have left him there in that kind of shape, unless the bodyguards had gotten hold of them both, or the fans. But the fans wouldn’t have mobbed the two of them. It wouldn’t make sense to-- a prickly feeling rose up in Gene’s throat, one he tried to shove down. No, no, it couldn’t be.

Paul’s hand slid to the side of the table. It was several seconds before his breathing slowed enough to speak. The noise of the crowd seemed to have faded out. Gene realized it dimly. There weren’t more than fifty people left in the entire room. He didn’t know how many had disappeared and how many had just fled. He couldn’t tell. He just kept rubbing Paul’s shoulder, closing his hand over it, then clenching as Paul finally answered him.

“They’re gone. They… you’d just started walking when they…”

“They left. You mean they left the room.”

“No. Gene, they--they were right there and I--I was going to… to follow you, I turned and…”

“But you didn’t see them. You didn’t see them, right?”

Paul was still solid. Not going anywhere, not dissolving in his grasp. Still warm. Still alive. Gene heard him make a slight sound and that was when he finally loosened his grip.

“I didn’t see them disappear.”

“Then they might have run out. Or--the bodyguards might’ve taken them to the limo--”

“No. Gene, just look--” Paul didn’t turn his head. Just pointed to his right. The three chairs. Gene’s own, empty and pushed back. Eric’s next to his, then Tommy’s. Gene took a breath. He had to force himself to look. He’d thought, earlier, that there was no trace, no trace at all when people disappeared, but he’d been wrong. There were scattered, metallic bits of their costumes on the seats and on the floor, only visible because they reflected the light.

They were gone. Tommy and Eric were gone.


	3. and the apes climbed down from the trees

Two bodyguards and one of the venue's security guards burst over to the table a little later. Neither of the bodyguards were the one that had grabbed Gene earlier, but he recognized them both in passing. The typical bunch, really, fortyish and thick-necked, almost permanently irked. Right now, Gene couldn’t blame them.

"We're going to need you to come with us."

"Where?"

"We're taking you home, if the roads will let us. Concert's canceled."

"It's canceled?" Gene repeated, bewildered.

"Do you want to go out there? Jesus Christ. Are you that fucking greedy?"

"No! No, I--"

"I got a family I don't even know is alive. I can't even check on them until I ferry a couple of rich fucking assholes back to their fucking mansions." 

"Hey, now--" Gene started, but Paul grabbed his arm suddenly. It shouldn’t have been nearly enough to make him cut himself off, but it was. Maybe only because of how strained Paul was. His hands had only stopped shaking over the last few minutes, dark eyes wide and eerie. The makeup only worsened the effect. Paul looked like a deer staring at a wolf.

"Did you get them?” Paul said, softly. “They're waiting on us, aren't they?"

"Your fans? There's still a bunch of crazies left. People that can't get out of the parking deck." Gene didn't think the man's disgust could have been more obvious if he'd spat in their faces. It wasn’t even the venue security guard railing them out-- it was the bodyguard. A guy they’d had on for half the tour. Instinctively, he wanted to lash out-- more for Paul's sake than his own-- Paul, who looked more deflated with every word out of the guard's mouth-- but he swallowed the impulse. "They aren't there for you anymore, none of them."

"I meant our families." Paul's fingers were beginning to twitch again. "I'll go if you just tell me--"

"I don't know where they are. I just got told to get KISS out in separate vehicles. Guess we only need the two."

Gene's guts felt as though they were scattered across the floor. He couldn't look at the empty chairs. Couldn't let himself think about it, but he was thinking about it anyway. Paul hadn't seen them go. Had Eric and Tommy watched each other start to fade? Had they felt it coming? What-- what kind of biological warfare could have possibly erased them from existence?

"I'm not going anywhere without my family." Paul sounded just slightly steadier, but his expression was still fearful. "They were in the arena. I'll get them myself if--"

Oh, God. Gene tried to remind himself that the arena wouldn't have been nearly full, not this early. The panic that had erupted earlier at the meet and greet had to have been in part from the enclosed space. But-- if they'd been taken aback, been knocked over-- the crowd wouldn't have given a shit whose wife and kids those were, if they thought they were in the way-- his stomach churned.

"Paul, you stay here. I'll go find them."

"No, I'm going."

"Paul."

"Don't tell me what to do. I can handle it." Paul stood up, finally. He didn't look like he could handle anything at all. His fists were clenched at his sides in a bid to keep any more shaking at bay. Gene gave him a wary look, but nodded.

The bodyguards glanced at each other. One of them looked as though he was about to speak, had that hesitant, awful expression on his face, but the others just seemed all the more angry. Like they’d have done any different, if their families were in the arena.

“We’re coming with you,” the security guard said.

“Fine.”

The Honda Center only had a few hundred people left in it by the time they got there. A few hundred at best. The two bodyguards were following them at a lazier distance than they had in more than forty years. Only the security guard seemed to actually be looking in earnest. Gene couldn’t find it in him to care.

It wasn’t like he’d pictured. No one seemed to have gotten trampled in the panic. People were huddled, hunched over, staring at him or past him. People were holding onto each other and sobbing. But no one else was disappearing.

The fans were actually moving over for him, completely unbidden. Letting him walk by without a single word. The only thing they did was stare, and not like he was used to, either, not like he was their childhood hero pulled out of the poster. No, they were staring at him with something close to pity.

He was scanning each row, stomping through the box seats, the floor seats, everything. He was yelling out for Shannon, for Nick, for Sophie. No answer.

Paul had gotten past him at some point, ran a few rows further out. He was screaming, too, voice cracking with every called-out name. Gene’s blood felt like it was about to freeze over. Nothing, nothing, for either of them.  _ They could’ve brought mics _ , Gene realized, distantly, strangely--  _ why didn’t they give us mics? _

Gene grabbed the railing as he climbed up the bleacher stairs, trying to catch up to Paul. His own throat felt like raw hamburger, mouth dry, breaths strained. Paul didn’t seem to notice until Gene put a hand on his shoulder, and then he flinched, turning to face him.

“I’m gonna ask for microphones.”

Paul nodded. Gene patted his shoulder.

“They probably got herded off by somebody else in security.”

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I-- fuck, I left my phone at the meet and greet. I bet we've got ten missed calls each. We've scared the shit out of them. You have your phone, Gene?"

Gene was almost ashamed he hadn’t thought of that first. He got it out, checked his messages. Checked his voicemail. Nothing.

Paul's face fell.

"Service is always real bad in arenas," he said suddenly. "I'll--"

"Mr. Stanley! Mr. Simmons!" It was the security guard, a few aisles away. He had something in his hands. He wasn't rushing forward to meet them. "I…"

He was holding three clutch purses.

\--

Time seemed to melt on itself after that. Gene kept talking. Kept offering scenarios. They might have gotten scared. All of them. Or-- Paul's dad was with them; he would've needed accommodations, maybe they'd gotten someone to drive them all back. Maybe. Maybe. Or they were back where the meet and greet was, looking for them, or in the dressing rooms--

He stopped when Paul picked a pink sippy cup up from the floor, less than a foot away from where the guard had found the purses. His youngest’s. She’d just turned three.

"You're going to have to go." It was the security guard, still holding the purses. Shannon and Sophie’s and Erin’s. Gene had the contents of Shannon’s memorized without opening it up. An unnecessary coin purse filled with useless maple leaf pennies, two hundred in cash in an inside pocket, lipstick, a compact, and a little billfold with a couple credit cards and a couple photos. That was all. Even when the kids were small, she’d never really gotten in the habit of carrying a big pocketbook-- Gene looked down at the guard, and it hit him, suddenly. Those expressions. The looks on the fans’ faces. They’d known. They’d known the entire time.

"I won't go.”

Paul’s voice was fading out more than usual. He sounded like he was very far away, like he was calling out from across a hill instead of standing next to him. Everything felt distant, unreal, blurred at the corners like all his earliest, most painful memories, only there was no comfort to the fade now, no comfort to his brain’s last line of defense to keep him from cracking. No comfort at all. Paul was staring at the teeth marks on the cup, eyes watering up. The security guard stepped forward. 

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stanley.”

“There’s a chance. There has to be a chance.”

“I don’t--”

“There’s-- there’s footage, right? Stadiums always have security cameras everywhere. Let’s-- we’ll take a look, I’ll… I’ll get my phone and me and Gene’ll keep calling, and-- I-I’m sure--”

“Paul, don’t.”

Paul turned to him, said something Gene didn’t hear. No, no, just something he didn’t want to hear. Shannon’s purse had ended up in his hands somehow, the thin strap ridiculous against his broad fingers. Shannon, too good for him even at his best. More than thirty years with him. Putting up with all his infidelity, all his bullshit-- putting up with him as KISS sunk under the weight of its own egos time and time again. Raising children with him-- he couldn’t look at Sophie’s purse-- couldn’t, couldn’t think of her or Nick, not directly, if he did, right now, if he gave into his grief right now, he’d never--

Shannon was easier. He could grieve her without going to pieces. Despite the eight years’ difference in their ages, he had always, always expected to grieve her.

She had stood by at his most undeserving. Let him sob on her shoulder when he found out about all the backtaxes, all the millions he’d been cheated out of. The disgust he’d felt, the humiliation of it, and the fear. He’d become a family man and he’d been leading that family toward poverty by his own fucking carelessness. She’d tried to calm him down, told him he was overreacting. She had never understood, and he couldn’t explain it, either, the gnawing, horrible knowledge that everything could be taken away at any time-- the rug could be pulled out from under him and he’d be six years old again, selling fruit in the streets of Israel, never knowing anything but hunger-- ten years old, watching T.V. endlessly to try and be American, stealing his accent from ’30’s movie stars-- eighteen-- twenty-two--  _ thirty _ -two-- no one understood his bottomless desperation, the depths he’d sink just to touch security, not Shannon, not Paul, only his mother had ever--

His mother.

She was at home in Beverly Hills. She hadn’t attended a KISS concert in years. Never gone on the Kruises. What had happened might have missed her.

Surely it had missed her. He couldn’t afford to think of any other options.

She would understand better than anyone. He could collapse as soon as he walked in the door, and she’d be strong, always so strong. She would take care of him until he got his bearings again. Take comfort in the old traditions, the faith he held but couldn’t live by. They’d-- sit shiva, a luxury she had never had in the camps, and-- 

Gene realized that Paul had stopped talking. He had Erin’s purse and the cup in his hand. Looking at him made Gene feel cold. His neck and shoulders weren’t flushed any more, just ashy. Paul had never looked old to him, whether out of Gene’s own deep-seated denial or out of pure virtue of seeing him practically daily for the last forty-five years-- but he did now. The makeup wasn’t covering up a damn thing. His mouth was pursed tight. Tears without sobs. Paul kept pushing at his eyes with the back of his hand, swiping roughly, careless of the paint, and it was then that the security guard, still holding Sophie’s purse, began to speak instead.

“We’re going to take you home.”


	4. and grew tall and they started talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unlikely source reaches out to Gene as he attempts to process the immediate aftermath of Thanos' snap.

He didn’t remember much of the ride. He hadn’t fought it when the guards insisted on separate vehicles. Just clutched onto Paul for awhile before getting in the van-- he felt like bones in his grip-- insisted he’d be coming to his house soon. Paul hadn’t said anything.

Once in the van, Gene had been handed his suitcase and make-up kit. They’d loaded up most of the rest of his personal effects into the back. Then the guard-- his chauffeur had been one of the vanished-- had driven him home.

He did remember the pile-ups of cars, and a couple times when the guard had to drive on the median just to get past them. They weren’t normal crashes, most of them. Just the smashed remnants of when the drivers had disappeared.

He’d yanked off the costume and taken off the facepaint in the van, pulling on a shirt and pants and a pair of loafers from the suitcase. But that was about it. He couldn’t focus on anything else. He left a message for his mother, and then another message. “Mom, I love you. I’m coming home.”

He hadn’t waited on her to let him in. Just unlocked the door himself. The luggage and makeup kit he was dragging behind him felt like a hobo’s pack for the first time in years. He expected the T.V. to be on, or the radio, but it was dark except for the outdoor security lights and the overhead light in the kitchen.

The fridge door was partially open. A cutting board was on the countertop, and a small tomato rested on top of the board, with a knife still plunged halfway into it. And that was all Gene needed to realize the truth. His mother wasn’t there, either. She’d been making herself a sandwich when she’d disappeared.

His mother, his beautiful mother, who’d survived the Holocaust, who’d survived everything, who’d taken care of him, raised him, spoiled him, saved him-- his mother was gone.

Gene wept then. He couldn’t control it. The empty house felt like hell itself closing in on him. Nothing was more real than the purses and the cutting board. Nothing was left. Everything, every fucking thing from the marble countertops to the plush carpet to the gold and platinum records neatly lining the living room felt disgusting. Felt grotesque. Worse than meaningless-- despicable. Sickening. Everyone he had made this for, the children he’d meant to leave it to, everyone truly important, had crumbled to dust before he’d even had a chance to say goodbye.

He didn’t know how long he stayed in the kitchen. Long enough for it to get fully dark. It felt like too much effort to get out of his chair, but he did eventually, taking the half-sliced tomato and putting it in the fridge, sticking the knife and cutting board in the sink like they really mattered. He wouldn't have ever done it himself, before. He couldn't remember ever putting up his own food. Somebody else was always there. His mother or Cher or Shannon or a roadie or a housekeeper-- someone who'd clean up for him. Someone who'd take care of him.

No one was going to take care of him now. No one was left to take care of him.

He took a few breaths. Tried to count them like it was one of Paul's old breathing exercises, the ones he used to use when he felt a panic attack coming on. Recentering. Some bullshit like that. It didn’t seem to do a damn thing. The only good came when it made him finally notice the buzz of his phone.

He didn’t answer the call. It wasn’t the first one he’d gotten since the arena, just the first one he’d paid any attention to. The name didn’t pop up, anyway-- he swiped his thumb across the screen on accident, while trying to just reject the call. The call ended, but the internet browser he’d had open hours ago, before the arena, before the meet and greet, came up. He almost closed out of it. He remembered what he’d been looking at that eternity ago. He’d been trying to decide whether or not to tweet before the show, and had scrolled through his twitter feed, still on the fence about it. Back when he thought that stuff mattered, when he swallowed up all that bullshit about marketing to Gen X and the older millennials and whoever the hell else, as if he cared now.

The page refreshed on automatic. Before he could close the browser, his eyes went unbidden to the tweets at the top of his feed. Less than a hundred people had liked them, retweeted them, whatever. But Gene almost didn’t have to read the username to know who they were from.

@genesimmons @paulstanleylive I’m still here!! WHERE ARE YOU??  
@genesimmons @paulstanleylive I’m with Peter at his place, I just got there  
@genesimmons @paulstanleylive Please either one of you call me up, you have my number! I keep calling you! I know you’re still here!!

It was Ace.

\--

Ace seemed to think that posting on twitter was synonymous with texting. Every single tweet was @ing both of them. Gene stared at the screen long enough that it started to dim to save its battery, making him have to tap it. He was crying again.

_ I know you're still alive. _ How Ace knew that, Gene didn't know. All the guys watched each others' movements, more obsessively than they’d admit to, but it still didn't add up. Ace, as far as he remembered, was on tour in New Jersey. He didn't have any contacts left from the old crowd, no one he could've followed up with.

It didn’t make sense.

And he’d gone to Pete’s. He was at Pete’s. Peter had actually let him in. 

Gene hesitated, fingers on the phone’s keyboard. He didn't know how to answer. Something about sending Ace a tweet back felt wrong, but he didn't think he could keep it together for a phone call. More than Paul, even, Ace would be expecting him to be strong. Ace had always depended on him, in an odd, uncomfortable way. Nearly twenty years out of KISS and Gene knew Ace was still seeking his approval, like a kid trying to barter for treehouse admission. Every so often, every six months, they’d get together over the phone. Gene would call Ace and they’d spend half an hour talking about the good times. Gene could always tell when Ace couldn’t remember them-- that laugh of his would get a little empty, those short injected “oh, yeah”’s would get a little more frequent. Ace always seemed to want to hang on the phone a little longer, wheedling him to keep on, keep on.

Those calls had been halfway between fun and an obligation for Gene. Paul was still bitter over Ace’s quitting, and treated him cordially, distantly, like Ace was a third cousin that just got out of prison. Peter had never gotten over Ace selling him out during the Reunion. So Gene felt like he had to reach out in their stead. Build a bridge out of a shared past. It made him feel better, and it’d been good insurance in case they wanted to pull the old, tired Reunion card one final time-- something else that didn’t fucking matter now--

He’d stopped crying by the time he checked his voicemails. He had twenty-five new ones. Some from tour personnel, some from shareholders, and three from Ace, plus six missed calls from Ace’s number.

Ace’s were the only ones he played completely through. That weird, high voice, still way too saturated in that Bronx accent for comfort, was an instantly recognizable relief. Of course it was. He’d only sat through a hundred interviews with the guy. Only spent fifteen years on tour with him. Only licked his neck about six hundred times in concert. Only yanked him out of two bathtubs when he was drunk as a skunk and drowning-- fuck, they’d last had a face to face conversation back a few months ago, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-- not much of one, sure, but still. 

“Gene! Gene, listen, everything’s so fucked up, I wanna make sure you’re okay-- look, I know you’re on your tour shit, but call me back when you can, okay? I gotta hear from you-- there’s not-- fuck, I’ve never seen anything like this. Y-you take care of your family. I’m trying to get Monique and…” There was a pause, a hitch for breath. “I don’t know. You take care, man.”

Next message.

“Gene, this is some fucked-up shit. I don’t wanna keep calling you when you’ve probably got stuff to take care of, but-- look, I don’t know who else I can talk to. Everybody’s going straight to voicemail. I haven’t gotten anybody on the line in hours. Not anybody. It’s scaring me. I-I’m going to try to drive to Pete’s. I think I can make it in a couple hours. I’ll see you.”

Next message.

“Gene, Gene, this is Ace, I’m a-about half an hour from Peter’s. The roads are fucked. Lemme know how everything is when you can. Be careful. They dunno if all the… if all this is gonna start up again. I know you’re still here. Call me back when you can. O-or call Pete. Either way.”

He must have started the tweets as a last-ditch effort to reach them both. Gene swallowed, finger on the callback icon. He pressed it. One ring. Two rings. And then he hung up just as quickly, not out of malice, just out of fear. He knew he couldn’t hold up for Ace, even over the phone. He’d barely managed it for Paul--

Paul.

Paul was less than a mile away. All alone in that gigantic mansion, with frescos on the wall like he thought he was some Greek emperor. Gene could picture it all, sickeningly clearly. The Elmo bean bag chairs, the little boxes of Juicy Juice in the fridge, the tacky animal print carpeting. Everything in that house must’ve been making Paul want to vomit as much as Gene did, because everything in that house underlined everyone that was gone.

No, worse than that. Infinitely worse than that. Paul was fragile even at his best. His kids were so young. He couldn’t keep it together. Gene remembered Vince Neil, how fucked-up that poor bastard had gotten after his little girl died, how every year since, seeing the man in passing, at award shows, in the tabloids, had just seemed like watching the slowest suicide in the world. He never had liked the Crue, those legendary rip-off artists, and Vince possibly least of all, but-- but Sophie and Skylar had been around the same age, and-- and if Gene had held her tighter, and if Gene had been a little more lenient, spoiled her a little more, after Vince’s daughter was gone, and hoped like hell he’d never experience that, why, then-- Gene swallowed.

He couldn’t think about that right now. He would think about it later. Collapse later. Right now, he had to push forward. Had to keep going. If his mother could survive the camps, he could survive this. He could live off that thought for a long, long time.

He wasn’t sure if Paul could. He was running over the same ground, thinking of Paul because it was easier to think of Paul, to think of Ace, than to think of himself, and yet he was thinking of himself anyway. Trying to keep going when he didn’t know where to go, how to help either of them, or Peter, even, much less himself-- all he knew was he had to keep it together, he had to-- be the one to--

Gene grabbed his coat, his charger, and his phone. Grabbed a billfold stuffed with debit and credit cards and about a thousand in cash. Took his suitcase, with its week’s worth of clothes for a Halloween cruise he’d never go on again, on a line that might not even exist now. He stuffed it in the back, and then he sped down the old, private road to Paul’s.

He prayed the light was still on in the house.


	5. and the stars fell out of the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gene goes to Paul's house and formulates the plan to head to Peter's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not one to typically warn for things that I feel are part and parcel of the fandom (so themes like drug use, cheating, rampant unprotected sex, etc., have never gotten a warning from me), but in this particular case and in the next few chapters, suicidal ideation is present and I feel I'd be remiss not to mention it.

Paul’s house, like everything about Paul, was ostentatious. Gene’s first taste of that had probably been around 1970, when Paul had pulled up to his house in Queens one Friday after school, showing off his new car. New to him. Gene hadn’t learned to drive until nearly twenty years later, and none of what Paul demonstrated about it impressed him, not the seafoam green paint job or the relative lack of mileage or even the air conditioning system inside. Gene remembered how Paul had gotten deflated, and then sullen.

“You just don’t want what I want,” Paul had said finally, dragging a hand through his curls, frizzy from humidity. “I thought you did.”

Gene hadn’t thought about that in a long time. Back then, Paul had just been some little high schooler, trying to impress his college friend. Always trying to impress someone, even when it didn’t matter. Gene hadn’t blinked at someone else’s wealth in decades. His net worth was easily double Paul’s-- or had been, God only knew what had happened to the stock market over the last few hours-- but he’d never felt the need to flash cash and prestige nearly as much as Paul still did. Pulling up to the driveway, the mansion looked like a behemoth, lit just by Gene’s headlights. Beyond the house was a garden, and beyond that were acres of land that Paul used to say he’d start a vineyard on. Inside the house-- inside the house, there was just Paul.

Not a single light was on. Gene had to use his phone just to see to walk from the driveway to the front porch.

He rang the doorbell. Waited. Rang it again, three times in a row. Gene could feel the acid rising up in his throat as he started pounding on the door instead, yelling out for Paul as desperately as he’d yelled out for his family. No answer.

His fingers felt like water-filled gloves, utterly useless. He should’ve known better. The minute the guards had said they’d take separate vehicles, he should have argued them down. Paul, left to his own devices for hours, could have easily done the unthinkable.

“ _Paul!_ "

_I know you’re still here._ Ace had said that online less than an hour ago. Three thousand miles away and Ace knew-- a wall away, and Gene didn’t.

_I want you to be here._

_I want to know you’re here._

He felt it then. A yanking sensation right in his gut, like he was a fish caught by a barbed hook. It hurt enough that he was leaning against the door, panting for breath, thoughts fraying-- and then it dissipated just as quickly. There was something in his throat-- something that felt like-- like smoke-- a red-hot heat behind his eyes. And maybe he was wishing too hard, but he thought for a second he’d felt it again, that old connection, that flooding of feelings back and forth between all four of them, just a wild mesh of hurt and pain and nothing else, but Paul was still alive, he felt it, he _felt_ it, he knew where he was, up in his bedroom, curled up under the covers, wide-awake, he knew, he _knew_ \--

“Paul--”

He tried the door. The knob turned easily in his hand. He didn’t hesitate before scrambling up the stairs, as dark as any backstage, past the rows of family portraits and paintings lining the walls, down the hallway, to his room, flipping on the light switch as soon as he walked in.

Paul was right where he’d known he would be. Buried under the covers. Gene scanned the nightstand and floor quickly, eyes darting, terrified he’d see pill bottles or a pistol, but there didn’t seem to be anything there-- which wasn’t the relief it could’ve been. Paul could’ve easily taken something in the kitchen and gone upstairs after. He’d always been a hypochondriac; he would’ve had enough medications at his disposal, it wouldn’t have been hard to--

Gene stepped over Paul’s suitcase and walked to the side of the bed, reaching over, hand resting where he thought Paul’s shoulder was, from the outline of the covers. Paul didn’t turn away.

“I’m right here. I told you I’d come back.”

Paul shifted slightly beneath the comforter and sheets.

“Just go, Gene.” Paul’s voice was almost completely shot, barely above a hoarse whisper. The screaming in the arena had done him in. It’d be three days at least before he could talk normally. But his words weren’t slurred at all, so that meant-- maybe that meant he hadn’t taken anything.

“I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Forget about me. Go see your mom.”

“I can’t, Paul.”

Paul stirred again. Gene was close enough now he could hear Paul’s soft pants against the sheets.

“Then it’s over. It’s over for both of us.” There was a sharp sound, a sound Gene barely recognized coming from Paul’s throat. He hadn’t heard it in years. It was the sound a kid would make after crying too long, to the point it wouldn’t even sound like crying anymore, just a shattered, strangled effort at a sob. Gene could feel his own lip tremble, his throat constrict, as he closed his hand over Paul’s shoulder.

“Nothing’s over. Get your ass out of bed.”

“No.”

“Get up, Paul.”

“Stop it--”

“Did you take anything?”

Beneath the covers, Paul shook his head.

“And you won’t, either. Get _up_.” Gene yanked the blankets back then, past his head, all the way down to his torso. Paul was lying on his back, dressed in what he’d had on before the meet and greet, a purplish floral shirt and jeans. There were a few crusted remnants of the facepaint still on his chin and forehead, white smudges that stood out stark against his flushed, wet face. Paul’s stare on him was glazed, like he was looking past him, almost like he thought someone else was there. He didn’t reach to grab the covers back, so Gene snatched them again, pulling them away entirely, and tossed them to the floor. 

“Gene, what are you--”

“I’m getting you out of bed.” Gene had him by both arms before Paul could protest further, forcing him into a sitting position. Paul’s expression contorted painfully, and he tried to go limp, making himself dead weight in Gene’s arms, but Gene kept on anyway, one hand moving to his back as support, the other to underneath his thigh. “We can do this any way you want to. I’ll carry you down the stairs if I have to.”

That was all the warning Gene gave before he jerked Paul’s leg forward, repositioning it like a marionette’s until it was over the edge of the bed. Paul made a slight, hitching noise, then, obediently, moved his other leg over the bed. Not much of a victory. From the vague way Paul started rubbing at his upper arm, Gene realized he’d probably hurt him as he’d pulled him up. The dazed expression on Paul’s face kept flickering into something wounded. He’d never laid a hand on Paul before-- in forty-five years, the worst he’d ever done was grab him by the shoulders-- and here he was, manhandling him like he was crazy or dangerous. Threatening him. Gene swallowed.

“Stand up,” he said, softer now, though the damage had already been done. Paul stood up mechanically, his hands stiff at his sides. Gene wanted to reach out to him, to apologize, but Paul looked like he was seconds from bolting, or collapsing, at the slightest move toward him. “I’ll carry your suitcase. Get whatever else you want to bring. I’ll be your roadie tonight.”

Paul took several seconds to answer.

“Your place?”

“What?”

“That’s where we’re going.”

“No.” It was getting hard to look Paul in the eye. It hadn’t ever been hard to do that before, not even when they’d been on horrible terms with each other. His eyes might as well have been a pair of black buttons for all the life left in them. Gene stared at his mouth instead, the wan, cracked lips, the start of five o’clock shadow directly above and beneath them. “No, we’re going to Peter’s.”

“Peter’s.”

“Yeah, Peter’s.” Gene exhaled. He’d only thought it before, hadn’t even summoned up the nerve to ask first, but now it was out in the air and definite. Feeling better than anything, better than hiding out in one of his summer houses or one of Paul’s or-- or staying here in a mansion that felt like a morgue. He knew Peter’s house. He knew every room of that carved-out fairytale of a place, resting on a couple acres of Connecticut woods. How proud Peter had been of it. How, as soon as the sales from the Reunion had started pouring in, the first thing he’d done was buy back his storybook mansion.

They’d all come by a half-dozen times at least when Peter had first had it built. It was almost the last brick-and-mortar monument to KISS left. Gene could feel his lip wobbling as he tried to smile.

“Y-you might’ve heard of him. Might be about five-nine, sounds a little like Rod Stewart-- he said he’d wear a dress to get in our band, Paul, kind of concerning, but he _does_ have his own drum set--”

"Pete's barely five-eight," Paul rasped out abruptly. As close to gone as his voice was, there wasn’t much expression in his words, barely any way of knowing if Paul was still somehow bitter or if he was only rattling off whatever came to mind, no longer able to sort between the inane and the necessary. "How-- how do you know he's even alive?"

“Ace updated his twitter. He said he was over at Peter’s right now.”

Paul’s hand went for the edge of the bed like he needed to steady himself. The look on his face shifted. Not as much as Gene had hoped. Not as much as Gene had expected. He still looked like absolute hell. But he also looked slightly more aware. It was a start.

“You can’t go over there.”

“What did I just tell you, Paul? I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“That’s… that’s clear across the country. You’d have to fly.” A choked wheeze of a laugh. “You can’t fly. There’s not an airport left flying anyone--”

“That doesn’t fucking matter. We’ll get there. Both of us. You think I’m gonna let you stay in here?”

“Peter hates me.” Paul was shaking his head, hand clenching the covers. “He’s hated me for years.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Gene snapped. “I don’t think he ever did.”

“I-In my book, I--”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, who cares about that now?”

Bewildering. Fucking bewildering. Paul’s concerns were so frivolous. Deep down, Gene knew he wasn’t being fair; he knew Paul wasn’t-- doing well, not at all, but--

“Get your stuff,” he tried again, a little more quietly. “Get your stuff and I’ll put it in the back for you. We’re driving over.”

He thought he heard Paul whisper something under his breath. Something like “driver.”

“We don’t have a driver. It’s just us.”

Paul blinked. Something in him seemed to stir a little. Slowly, his hand slipped away from the covers. Slower still, he walked past Gene and grabbed the handle of his luggage. Paul’s head was drooping like a heavy coat on too fragile of a hook, but he turned, staring at Gene almost expectantly. Gene stared back, surprised to see Paul complying. It felt like it had come too easily. It felt like it should have taken more. Suspicion tugged just beneath the surface of his skin, but Gene shoved it away. Paul was just like that. Only able to pull himself together for small spurts of time. Turn himself on just long enough to keep up appearances, whether it was in front of ten thousand people or just in front of him. Gene wouldn't let himself think any differently about it, despite the question pulling his lips apart.

“That’s all you’re bringing? Just your suitcase?”

Paul nodded dully.

“I don’t even need this.”


	6. and my tears rolled into the ocean

Gene took Paul’s luggage, just like he’d promised. He’d gone ahead of him, flashlight app on his phone lighting the way to the car while Paul shut the front door behind them.

“You ought to put on the security system, Paul.”

“It’s automatic.”

“It wasn’t on when I got here. I just walked right in.”

Even in the dark, Gene thought he could picture Paul’s expression well enough. Eyebrow probably cocked, mouth half-open in a protest he hadn’t quite formulated yet.

“It was on. I didn’t disable it.”

“You must have.”

“I didn’t.”

Gene put Paul’s suitcase in the backseat, unlocking the passenger door so Paul could get in. Paul hesitated, hand on the mirror. It was as if he kept trying to find something to hold himself steady with.

“You should go on without me, Gene.”

“Forget it.”

“L-look, I’ll hold you back. You know how I am, you’ll just-- waste all your time dragging me around-- let me stay here, Gene.”

“No.”

“I’ll call the housekeeper. Somebody. I won’t be in the house alone.”

“You’re coming with me, and that’s it. If you don’t want to go to Peter’s, that’s one thing, but I’m not enough of an idiot to leave you by yourself. Now get in the car.”

“Gene--”

“Get in the car.”

Paul got in. Gene shut the door for him before crossing over to the driver’s side and climbing in himself. He buckled up and backed out of the driveway as messily as usual, turning a three point turn into a six-point or more, heading off the private road. He didn’t notice the quickly-fading ding of the seatbelt alarm over the sound of the radio-- he was listening for the traffic reports, cringing at the radio dj’s every word. Pileups everywhere. Miles and miles of pileups in some areas, from a mix of the disappeareds’ cars and crashes-- crashes with people still inside. Advisory was not to go out if you could help it, with almost no information on what had happened or how bad it really was. But advisories and presidential edicts weren’t stopping anyone from scraping around, searching for survivors-- they weren’t stopping anyone from driving, or hijacking buses, or-- or holding up stores, or-- 

Beside him, Paul reached out a hand. Gene thought he wanted something at first, and shifted, glancing at him, but then Paul let his hand sink onto Gene’s thigh. His palm was warm. Dimly, Gene realized he had that old watch on, the one that Bill Aucoin had bought him well over thirty years ago. Even in the meager light of the car’s dashboard, the gold watch was obviously broken, the hands pointing to five-thirty. He hadn’t gotten it fixed, for all he could’ve taken it to one of Eric’s watchmaker friends any time he’d wanted to.Strange. He didn’t remember Paul having that on in the dressing room a hundred years ago.

“Gene,” Paul said, quietly.

“Yeah?”

They hadn’t yet edged out of Beverly Hills. Already traffic had ground to a halt. Gene was having to lean out the window just to try and determine what was traffic and what was pile-ups. He was having to use the other cars as a guide, following them blindly. In forty minutes, they’d gone four miles.

“Let me drive.”

He’d denied Paul more severely over the last few hours than he had in the last thirty years. Maybe he was underestimating Paul, but he didn’t think he could handle the car in the shape he was in.

“Maybe later.”

“Okay.” No argument. Paul almost sounded like a child. Five minutes ticked by, the radio the only sound besides their breathing, Paul’s hand still on his thigh, and then he spoke again. “I want… I want to tell you something.”

“Go ahead. You can tell me whatever you want.”

“I-I don’t know if you want to hear it.”

“Go ahead.”

“Gene, I…” Paul’s breaths were choppy, voice still as quiet as usual. Gene turned down the radio. “I used to wait on you to call me after school. I-I’d turn on the T.V. but I never had it on loud because… because then I couldn’t hear the phone. I’d wait every single day.”

“Paul--”

“It’s stupid. I never… I never wanted you to know you meant that much to me.” He exhaled. “I didn’t want to need anyone that badly. I thought I’d get over it. You’d hurt me or I’d hurt you and it’d all be gone. But it wasn’t. I didn’t.”

“I-”

“I knew I couldn’t pay you back. I just kept trying to pretend I didn’t have to.” His hand on Gene’s thigh tightened, thumb pressing in tight through his pants. It ached just enough for Gene to shift his leg, just a little. “Kept pretending I’d have been a success without you. But it… it ate at me, you know? Knowing I couldn’t give you anything.”

“You don’t know what you’ve given me. You’re my best friend.”

“I’ve never given you anything.”

“That’s not true.” Gene’s attention on him was fading. Traffic was only inching forward. On either side, all sides, were the cars of the disappeared. No ambulances. No fire trucks. No one able to take care of anything. The road looked more like-- like that arcade game-- Frogger-- almost impossible to navigate around, almost impossible to move. Gene turned his head. “Paul, I think I’m gonna have to start off-roading even more. Everyone else is.”

Paul flinched.

“Gene, I’m trying to tell you--”

“You don’t have to.” He was on the median strip. The guy in front of him had pulled over and away, his warning lights flashing. He’d probably run out of gas. Gene was able to speed up considerably then, going over twenty miles an hour for the first time since leaving the private road. He saw Paul glance over at the dashboard, and he wasn’t sure why.

“But you don’t understand! I… I can-- Gene, please, let me--”

“Let you what?”

“You won’t do it yourself.” Paul’s face almost seemed to wobble. Like someone was jiggling a camera. “I know you. Y-you’ll ride anything out to the end. You’re too strong.” And then in a sudden rattle, “I’ll do it for you. I’ll do it for both of us. Let me take care of it, I--”

His hand moved from Gene’s thigh. Up in the air, near his arm. Gene realized too late where Paul’s hand was going. Paul’s fingers were clenched onto the wheel, starting to turn it, almost before Gene could reach and react, gripping it harder, turning the wheel back-- too forcefully, the tires squealing in protest-- Paul was trying to climb on top of him, trying to force the wheel back-- back-- back-- off the median and off the road itself, towards the guardrail-- oh, fuck, he was trying-- he was trying--

“You’re going to kill us!”

Gene’s arm flew out wildly. His elbow connected with Paul’s shoulder, somehow, fingers shoving against his throat. He heard a choked, horrible sound, felt Paul move back, off of him entirely-- his foot connected with the brake as the tires squalled again, barely avoiding a collision with the vehicle in front of him. There couldn’t have been more than six inches of space between the cars. A driver honked his horn behind him and then drove past, then a slew more behind him, while Gene sat there, staring and stunned.

He understood now. He understood everything. The way he’d brought nothing at all but the suitcase Gene had carried for him. The way he’d offered to drive, the way he’d looked at the dashboard. The watch on his wrist, that broken present from Bill from forty years or more ago. A memento he wanted to die wearing.

He’d thought taking Paul out of the house would have been enough. He was wrong.

Gene cut off the engine without even thinking about it, the key like a rock in his hand. He let it drop to the middle console. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to Paul again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Gene--”

“You tried to kill us! You tried to  _ kill _ us!”

Paul’s face was almost gray. He looked haggard, edging backwards against the passenger window like he expected to be hit. 

“I-I knew you’d keep on and on. I knew you would. I wanted to-- you should have let me--”

“Should have  _ let _ you?” His hands found Paul’s shoulders, grasping them, shaking them. Paul might as well have been papier-mache in his grip. He didn’t fight at all. “I should have let you kill us? Are you fucking insane?”

“There’s nothing  _ left _ ! I understand that! Y-you won’t let yourself understand that! I-if I could do one thing-- one thing for you, i-it’s this, and--”

“Don’t tell me there’s nothing left!” Heat was rising behind his eye sockets, absolutely burning. Staring at Paul, incensed at the desperation and defeat there. The despair. Incensed because he’d seen it before so many times, but never so raw. Never had it mirrored what he felt, and never had it felt more pathetic. More appalling. “What do you know about having nothing left?!”

“They’re gone, Gene, they’re not coming--”

“What the fuck do  _ you _ know about having nothing left?” Gene leaned in, almost breathing down his neck. Right up against his left ear, his good ear. “Did your family go to the camps? Were you the only one that made it out alive?”

“Gene--”

“Did you get sent to Israel after? Husband gone. Breadlines for you and your kid. Fucking breadlines. Did you pick fruit on the side of the fucking road--”

“I’m not your mother, Gene!”

“You’re damn right you’re not.” No. Paul, fucking Paul, who’d had a nervous breakdown over a bad album. Paul wasn’t even fit to carry his mother’s purse. For a second he wanted to slap him in the face, take it out on him, everything, every bit of horror over the last few hours, over that single display of desperation. “My mother didn’t live through the Holocaust and your mother didn’t flee Nazi Germany just for you to try and kill us both.”

Paul’s eyes were narrowed and wet. The tears weren’t yet streaming down his face. He grabbed Gene by both arms, trying to shove away his grip. Gene just clenched all the harder, like he could force Paul to want to live if he held him there long enough, not caring if he was leaving bruises on Paul’s shoulders. The acrid feeling in the back of his throat intensified with every second that Paul struggled. He only relented when Paul dug his nails into his arms, letting go but not drawing back at all, as Paul finally spoke.

“You’re a fucking asshole.” His voice was soft and ravaged. Broken. It went beyond indignation and into fury. Paul was angry Gene had stopped him. Angry he’d been called out. Fine. Better angry than defeated. Paul could hate him all he wanted as long as he kept breathing. He could hate him all the rest of his life. “Don’t-- hang them over my head like--”

“Like it compares? It doesn’t. It fucking doesn’t. I shouldn’t have to shame you into staying alive.” And then he finally shifted away, back into his seat, snapping his seatbelt back on before picking up his car key. “Now buckle up, Paul.”


	7. now i'm looking for a reason why

For the next several hours, neither of them spoke. Gene would glance Paul’s way occasionally, always wary every time he was able to speed up that Paul might try to grab the wheel again, but he didn’t. Paul would steal looks sometimes, not the mean ones Gene had expected, either, just shamed and oddly searching. He was slumped but buckled into his seat. It was like that last outburst had taken everything out of him. Gene’s anger faded out more with every mile on the odometer. Maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe he was just making excuses, and maybe those excuses were asinine now, given what Paul had tried to do. But Paul wasn’t well. Right now, Gene wasn’t well, either.

He didn’t want to think about what had motivated Paul. Just as long as he could keep Paul from trying it again, or anything like it. He thought he could do it. As long as he could keep an eye on him. And once they got to Peter’s, it was going to be better for everyone. He had to hold onto that. The lingering remnants of the old bond, wishful thinking though they might have been, were enough to push Gene forward.

If Paul could feel a spark of that, just a spark, he might want to go on living.

At one point, Gene reached over and tapped Paul on the knee. He had been a little afraid to do it, almost expecting Paul to draw back like a frightened animal, but he didn’t. Encouraged, Gene dug his phone out and handed it to Paul a few minutes later. A task. Something to keep him busy, at least for a few minutes. Keep him from staring miserably out the window. Keep Gene from feeling… grotesque, somehow, for manhandling him into everything way before Paul had tried to take matters into his own hands. He didn’t like treating Paul like that. 

“Tell them we’re coming.”

“They don’t know?” Paul seemed sluggishly surprised. “You didn’t tell them?”

“I meant to. I didn’t think it through.”

“I don’t know if I can talk. I don’t--” Paul’s mouth was twisting, like he was trying to find the words. “I’m not mad at Peter. I just don’t think I can--”

Gene couldn’t fault him when he hadn’t been able to so much as call Ace back up himself.

“Then text him.”

“I don’t think Pete knows how to--”

“Then text Ace.”

Paul said nothing, but nodded faintly. Gene watched him start to type, then turned his attention back to the road. They’d only gone about a hundred miles in all that time, for all the slowing and stops and piles of traffic and empty cars, but the tank was already half-empty. He didn’t know how bad things really were--he had an idea, sure, but he didn’t know if it was going to be hard to get gas later. He figured it would be. So much he hadn’t considered. So much he was already regretting not taking stock of. He hadn’t brought any food, for one thing, just cash and credit cards. And Paul--Paul had only brought his suitcase. He shook his head, trying to keep his focus more on what they did have, what they could carve out from there. Paul looked like he was still messing around on the phone, though whether he was texting Ace or checking webpages, Gene wasn’t sure.

“Did you get him?” Gene asked after awhile.

“Yeah. I got him. He’s okay.”

“Good.”

He didn’t push for more conversation out of Paul than that. The line of cars seemed endless, like some hellish caravan. About the only times anyone seemed to pull over were when their engines failed or when they ran out of gas. Gene was relying on the traffic reports, except it got progressively more obvious that they didn’t really matter. He wasn’t getting anywhere fast. After over four hours on and off the road, they hadn’t come close to even hitting Nevada.

Throughout the traffic reports were the news reports. Pandemonium everywhere. There were estimates on the amount of disappeared people, anywhere from twenty-five to sixty percent of the population. Other countries were reporting the same or similar statistics, but there was no official confirmation of it being global yet. Conspiracy theories were abounding. The real data just wasn’t there--

It was too late, and he was too tired, to keep driving. He hadn’t eaten since well before the meet and greet. He couldn’t possibly trust Paul to swap driving duties, and he didn’t want to risk pulling off somewhere and them both sleeping in the car. He turned off the radio and managed somehow to get on an exit, pulling into the first hotel parking lot he saw.

“Gene…” Paul seemed to stir once Gene cut off the engine. He sounded like he was trying to talk through a vat of molasses, voice thick. He looked utterly out of it. Like he would have followed anyone around that so much as motioned in his direction, like he was using up all his brain cells just putting one foot in front of the other. “There’s not gonna be any rooms. They’re gonna be full.”

“They’ll be half-full. And that’s being optimistic.”

Paul didn’t respond. He still followed behind Gene in a mechanical sort of way, right up to the hotel’s front desk. Gene was impressed that anyone was standing there at all. Some girl, her hair in a disheveled bun, her face so pallid he could see the veins around her eyes and forehead. She didn’t recognize him--but then again, the way she looked, she didn’t seem as though she’d recognize anyone, as Gene finally spoke.

“We’d like a room.”

She didn’t answer, and so Gene repeated himself.

“We’d like a room.”

“What kind?”

“Any kind. Whatever’s available.”

The girl leaned over her computer.

“Double?”

“That’s fine." He glanced at Paul out of habit, but Paul didn't so much as nod or shake his head. Gene doubted Paul's mouth would have shifted more than a centimeter if the old Coop had burst out of one of the hotel rooms. He pulled out his wallet, offering his credit card. "Just tonight. We'll check out tomorrow morning."

She didn't take the card. 

“The… the machine’s not working.”

Of course it wasn't. Credit card processors were probably down globally. Gene swallowed and dug through his wallet again, producing three crinkled hundreds. He handed them over without a flinch.

“That should be plenty. Keep the change, I don’t care right now.”

At that, Paul shifted.

“Gene, hey--”

“I mean it, I don’t care.”

“Y-you’re gonna care later.” Like a wind-up toy coaxed into movement, Paul reached a hand over the desk. The practiced but hesitant charm eased its way back into him with every soft, hoarse word to the girl, taking Gene aback. “Here, give it to me, if he won’t take it, honey. You don’t know who he is.”

“Is he a CEO? W-we used to get those sometimes.”

“Worse.”

“Paul, c’mon.”

“N-no, wait.” The girl opened the cash register, started counting the change. No, now she was recounting it, her eyes darting between their faces like she was watching the ball during a tennis game. “Don’t tell me. I think-- were you on Big Brother?”

Gene shot Paul a glance. Paul just nudged him.

“No.”

“He… he had his own T.V. show,” Paul supplied. Gene gave him another look before it hit him. Paul was trying to distract the girl and him, both. He was actually trying to make them feel a little better. “He’s been in a lot of movies.”

“She’s too young, Paul, don’t--”

“Are you the one that ate the bat?”

“No, that’s Ozzy Osborne. This is Gene Simmons.”

The girl offered up a confused look but gave Paul the change. Gene expected Paul to pocket it-- the guy didn’t have a dime on him-- but instead he slid his hand into Gene’s pocket, forfeiting the whole thing. The bills didn’t make a sound, but the quarters clinked together on the way down. Paul pulled his hand out of Gene’s pocket, and touched his arm, looking at him hesitantly.

The girl mutely handed Gene a printout-- he signed it-- and two room keys.

"Down the hall. Elevator's on the right."

\--

He'd expected, feared, really, that Paul wouldn’t be able to keep up the pretense. He hadn't been wrong. Paul had stripped and crawled under the covers, barely saying a word. He grabbed onto Gene for what felt like an hour, face buried against his shoulder-- and then, once he’d fallen asleep, his grip slacked off a bit. Gene watched him, then slowly, carefully shifted Paul’s arm off him.

They hadn’t shared a bed in at least a year. Their on-again, off-again affair hadn’t been particularly torrid in over a decade, but it hadn’t ever smoothed over into something comfortable, either, just there, ever-present and barely discussed. Once he and Shannon had gotten serious, he’d had to tell her about Paul--stupid how owning up to that had felt a dozen times worse than sharing the photo albums. Shannon had been kind, overly kind, and at the time he hadn't understood. He'd thought that meant she wasn't serious at all, if she was willing to overlook both a different girl on the side every night on tour and Paul hovering somewhere in the periphery. He’d been wrong.

They’d moved in together, briefly, while Paul was in the middle of his divorce. It hadn’t exactly been out of ardor, either. Paul had been so damn miserable, shooting his mouth off to anyone who looked at him sideways, refusing to eat and stuffing his pants like he thought it was ’82 again. He’d been worried about him, and so he’d talked to Shannon and handed Paul a set of keys to his guest house. A day later, he’d moved some of his own stuff in, started spending most nights with him, not really wanting to leave Paul there alone.

Less than a month after that, Gene had evicted himself from his own guest house and let Paul stew over there for another three weeks on his own. It hadn’t worked out. Paul wasn’t any happier. Neither of them had ever breathed the suggestion of living together again. The mile or so between their Beverly Hills houses was close enough.

And yet here they were.

The streetlight was pouring directly into their hotel window, making everything starkly contrasted, too easy to see in the dark. Gene pushed back Paul’s bangs before he could quite stop himself, looking at the gray streaks Paul had only lately stopped dyeing away. Feeling the lines sunk against his forehead despite rounds of facelifts and Botox. His hand shifted, nearly unbidden, to Paul’s good ear, running over the cartilage. Paul didn’t stir.

Forty-five years since Paul was that high schooler with a chip on his shoulder, that vague friend-of-a-friend Gene thought he had nothing in common with. Forty-five years since Gene was a cocky would-be singer-songwriter with a dream and a back-up plan. Tonight it felt like it should have been a million.

He turned away after a bit, carefully getting up from the bed. As quietly as he could, he dragged Paul’s suitcase out from under the bed and to the bathroom so he could pilfer through the contents. He felt slimy for doing it, digging through a bunch of vests, black pants, thongs, and socks, but what he was checking for was prescriptions. Paul had never really been a drug addict. He used to smoke joints and take uppers recreationally in the seventies, both of which had pissed Gene off, but nothing serious. He’d taken antidepressants off and on for decades.. And once he’d started the long barrage of injury-related surgeries, everything from hip replacements to rotator cuff replacements to knee replacements, he’d had to be on pain meds for awhile, which, as far as Gene had ever known, he’d weaned himself off of. But he couldn’t be too careful. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Paul, it-- well, right now--

It turned out not to matter. Even after unzipping every portion of the luggage he could, he didn’t find so much as a bottle of melatonin in there. 

But he did discover Paul’s passport, with a piece of notebook paper folded into a crooked origami heart and stuck between the pages. Gene opened it after a few seconds of hesitation, finding “I love you, Daddy!! Love, Sarah” scribbled in highlighter markers on the inside, each word circled with hearts and flowers.

Gene refolded the paper and stuck it back inside the passport.

He retrieved his phone from the pocket of Paul’s jeans, plugging it in to charge overnight. There was still just enough battery left to turn it on while it charged, and out of curiosity, he started looking through the messages Paul had sent Ace while Gene’d driven.

Hey

Ace: Gene

No this is Paul. i'm on Gene's phone. He's okay

Ace: good. That's good. Paul listen

Ace: everybody's gone. I saw Rachael go and I can't get hold of Monique or Jeanette. I went over there and think

Ace: I don't

Ace: Paul you know I hate this shit I've got to talk to you or Gene, I'll call

Don't call I really can't talk right now

Ace: what are you busy? Come off it

Ace: I’ve got to talk to somebody I’ve got to talk to you

They're gone I can't talk all right? I'm sorry

Ace: Everybody?

Ace: Jesus I'm sorry

Ace: is gene's family still okay?

.No

Ace: Oh Jesus. 

He told me to tell you we're coming over. He saw your post

Ace: To Peter's?

Yeah

If he'll let us in

Ace: Are you flying? I dont think you'll be able to get a flight everything's too fucked up

We're driving

Ace: I barely got over here

Ace: from california?

Yeah

Ace: that's two days straight of driving which one of you is driving?

Gene

Ace: he can't drive for shit.

Ace: you need to drive

I don't think I could focus enough

Ace: the roads are completely fucked right now

Ace: Empty cars everywhere

?I know okay

Ace: okay

Ace: when you can then

Ace: be really careful

Okay

Ace: we’ll see you

We’ll see you.

Gene thought about texting Ace back. Or calling, even. He’d avoided calling for hours now. Forget the timezone difference; Ace was probably still up. He could handle it now; it’d be good to-- it’d be good to-- Gene swallowed, unplugging the phone and carrying it and the charger into the bathroom, closing the door as carefully as possible. He plugged the phone back in and then called up Ace.

Three rings. Four rings, no response. One o’clock in the morning, eastern standard time. On the fifth ring, Ace finally answered.

"Gene?"

"Ace."

"Hey." Ace was silent for a second. His voice was tinny, but he didn’t sound as if he’d been crying recently. Maybe it hadn’t hit him yet. Maybe he’d done all his breaking down earlier. "I'm sorry. Paul said--"

"I'm sorry, too."

A choked sound and some mumbling from the other receiver. No, further, from somewhere near where Ace was. Then a little rustling, Ace’s voice slightly muffled.

"I-- Pete, it's Gene. They're coming over like I told you. Yeah. You wanna--" Gene could almost feel the disappointment in Ace's voice. "Okay. Okay, Petey." More rustling, and then he could hear Ace clearly again. “Sorry, I thought he might want to talk to you, too.”

“It’s okay.” Gene swallowed. “Ace, I know we didn’t give much warning, but if Peter doesn’t want us to come, we--”

“He does.” Ace’s voice sounded a little uneven. “Trust me. He’s been asking about you and Paul.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said those fuckers better be careful.”

Despite himself, Gene could feel the corners of his mouth twitch up.

“We’ll be careful.”

“Good.” Ace exhaled. “Gene, he’s in real bad shape.”

“Nobody’s in good shape.”

“That’s not it. You know what I mean. You got Paulie over there, you know what I mean.”

“Ace--” he started. Part of him wanted to press, for all that he knew Peter was right there. Just to know he wasn’t alone. Just to know he wasn’t the only one trying to piece together someone who didn’t seem to want it. Peter was more emotional than Paul. He wondered, sickly, what Ace had found when he’d come up. What Ace had had to talk Peter out of.

“It’ll be better once you two are here.” There was another awful, choked noise. “Gene, I-I think--”

“What?”

“I think we’re all we’ve got left.”


	8. you even set my world into motion

Paul was up before him the next morning. Sitting up, at least, yesterday’s clothes back on. Curls limp and matted, graying stubble more pronounced around his jawline. He was staring at the muted T.V. in front of the bed, reading the captions. He didn’t look over at Gene when he finally spoke.

“Gene.”

“Yeah.”

“They’ve confirmed it’s global.”

“I figured.”

Paul inclined his head, gesturing with a hand to the nightstand. A plate of muffins, some miniature cereal boxes, a spoon, a paper bowl, and two glasses-- one with milk, and one just with ice cubes, fought for space on the small table.

“I got… I got you some breakfast from downstairs. They’ve got enough for an army down there.”

Of course they did. They’d been expecting double the occupancy, before last night. Why they’d brought out all the food instead of putting the nonperishables aside, he didn’t know. Maybe the upper management had been among the disappeared, and whatever workers were left didn’t give a shit anymore. But the fact that Paul had enough presence of mind to go down there, instead of just sitting up staring at the television the entire time-- maybe that was a good sign.

“Did you get anything for yourself?”

“I had a muffin. I’m not really hungry.”

Gene let out an exasperated grunt.

“Am I going to have to make you eat, too?”

“I ate--”

Gene grabbed another one of the muffins and stuck it on Paul’s thigh. Paul stared at it, then picked it up, slowly unwrapping the paper casing at the bottom. Gene didn’t stop watching him until he’d taken two bites and swallowed. Then he grabbed the cereal for himself, pouring it into the bowl, then the milk and ice. Paul had remembered how he liked it.

Paul set the muffin down half-eaten, busying himself with picking the crumbs off the comforter, while Gene dug into his cereal. He didn’t have much of an appetite himself, with even the Cheerios tasting like sandpaper in his mouth, but he had never forgotten the fear of hunger enough to push food away. Food wasn’t a constant. It wasn’t a guarantee. And now… a part of him wanted to go downstairs with Paul and fill the car up with every bit of food their car could hold, even the fucking bacon and sausage, because who knew when they’d get more of it, who knew what had happened to the convenience stores and gas stations and supermarkets. If Beverly Hills had turned into a bottleneck, God only knew what the rest of the country was like right now. For the first time, he was almost worried about how they were going to get to Peter’s.

“Gene.” Paul again, speaking out of nowhere. His gaze was on the T.V., one hand on the remote, though he wasn’t turning the volume back on. “Gene, you remember the drills we used to have in school. In case of a nuclear attack.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“We would get under our desks, right? On our knees, hands over our heads. We had-- w-we had places we were supposed to go to if it happened. If you lived close enough, you’d go home. I didn’t, so me and Julia, we’d-- we’d go to my uncle and aunt’s, down on--”

“Paul, don’t--”

“Lemme say it, okay? We’d go down there like it was any safer. We all knew if-- if the Russians really bombed New York, we’d all be gone before we even knew it. But it-- I guess it made us feel better to have somewhere we could… we could go back to.”

“It did.”

“I haven’t been to Peter’s in twenty years.”

“You were there when he built the place.”

“I don’t know if he really wants us coming. I only texted Ace. I didn’t even ask, I just told him.”

“Paul, do you really think Peter would kick you out?”

“I’d deserve it if he did.”

Gene didn’t answer for a few seconds. He spooned the last of the cereal into his mouth, and then took a breath.

“I think Peter lost his wife.”

“What?” Paul turned off the T.V. abruptly, turning to look at Gene. “Did you talk to him?”

“I talked to Ace last night. I could hear Peter in the background.” Gene swallowed. “I don’t know that for a fact. But Ace told me he thought we were the only ones left. He wouldn’t have said that if Gigi were there.”

Paul’s mouth twitched, eyes suddenly back on the muted television screen.

“What about his daughter?” His eyes were watering up. “What about Monique? Or Peter’s girl? Jennilee?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or even-- Ace has another little girl with--Lindsay, I think that’s the kid’s name--” Paul cut himself off. Talking about a little girl who Gene knew was at least thirty years old now. Time seemed to have collapsed on Paul somewhere between last night and that morning. But maybe it always had for both of them. Putting on makeup and strapping themselves into leather gear, pasting up the old charade as if the stage could bring it all back. “I’m not--Gene, it’s not what you think, I’m not--I won’t--I won’t be mad at him if he still has her. I just want to know. I want-- somebody should have someone left. At least one of us should. I-it’s simple odds, isn’t it? They’re saying half the world disappeared. Gene, there’s no way-- if it’s… random… random chance--”

A coin could land on heads a hundred times in a row, and it wouldn’t change the odds of getting tails. He’d taught that to his sixth-graders a lifetime ago. But Gene didn’t have the heart to tell it to Paul. Paul’s gaze raised back to Gene’s face again, fingers curling on the covers.

“Gene, y-you’ve got a couple cousins, why don’t you try--”

“I haven’t been in touch with them in more than forty years, Paul.”

“So?”

“I don’t even know if they were alive before this.”

Paul faltered.

“You don’t… you don’t have Ericka’s number. Do you? I didn’t bring my phone. I didn’t even bring my wallet.” Paul laughed, strangely. “This--this is the first time in forty years I’ve left the house without my wallet.”

“I think I've got her number."

Paul’s mouth twitched. The glassiness to his eyes just looked worse.

“I’ll call her. She’ll be there. I know she’ll--” Paul stopped himself, getting up from the bed and retrieving Gene’s phone from the bathroom, flipping through the screens. “I can’t-- we can’t be the only--”

Gene’s stomach was writhing. Part of him wanted to snatch the phone away from Paul. Not knowing might be better than knowing. But the look in Paul’s face was so pitiful, so pleading, that he couldn’t manage it.

“Paul, I don’t know.”

“You’re supposed to know everything.” Paul’s fingers were shaking as he tapped on her name and put the phone to his ear. He waited. Gene watched him wait. “Ericka, this is Paul. C-could you call me back? Honey’s--”

It took a second for Gene to remember who Honey was. Paul’s parents had raised Ericka. Up until she was eight or nine, and an article had run in one of the teeny-bopper magazines, she’d believed they were her parents, too. Thought Paul was her big brother and not her uncle. She’d never called Paul’s father Dad or Daddy or anything. Just called him Honey.

“Please call me back. I love you.” His hand was fidgeting still. He handed the phone back to Gene. “She’s… she’s probably on the road, right?”

“Paul--”

“I’ll call again in a couple hours. She always-- she’ll get back to me. I probably-- worried the hell out of her, not answering my phone…”

Gene let him keep going. Paul rambled for what felt like an hour. He said that Ericka was probably going to see Julia. Holding onto that thought so desperately.

Then, abruptly, he started-- started talking about Victoria in rattled, weird sentences. Gene had never heard him speak about her, not after it had happened. Paul had sealed that pain off. Amputated that piece of himself so cleanly that even Gene had almost forgotten that Victoria had ever existed as anything but a dedication on Paul’s first solo album. Part of Gene didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to watch another illusion crumble to powder, watch Paul cry over a girl nearly forty years gone. Didn’t know why he was talking about her at first, what was provoking him after all this. He’d thought he knew everything about Paul, and lived through half of it alongside him, the half that wasn’t in his head. He thought there wasn’t a particle of Paul left that he hadn’t been privy to. He was wrong.

“I thought that was--I--I remember thinking that night,  _ it’ll never be this bad again. Nothing will ever be this bad again _ . I had to hold onto that. I never got proven wrong until yesterday.” His eyes were glazed over. “Not when the bottom fell out in ’80. Not when Pam miscarried, not when we divorced, not when my voice got all fucked up. Nothing was ever as bad as the night she killed herself.”

“Paul, listen--”

“A month to the day later I played the fucking Budokan. Five nights in a row.” Paul took a hitching breath. His voice was frayed, just on the verge of going out entirely. “I was twenty-six. You can take a lot more at twenty-six than you can at sixty-two.”

“You’re not taking this alone, Paul.”

“I-I know that. But I don’t know if I can stand it, Gene. I-I’m trying. I’m not gonna try and crash the car again. I swear. But if Ericka’s… if Julia’s-- if I’ve got no… no family left, then I don’t know if--”

“You’ve got to.”

“We don’t even know if it’s gonna keep happening. We could disappear tomorrow. Maybe we should--”

“Do what she did?”

Paul went silent. For a second, he just stared at Gene, watery eyes wide and stunned, shaking his head. Gene could almost see Paul think-- everything was always so obvious on his face, and always had been.

“Victoria was sick, Gene, she… she couldn’t help it. It’s not her fault.”

“I’m not saying it was her fault. I’m saying what she did is still affecting you.”

He bristled, mouth tensing.

“Of course it is. I loved her.”

“You think there’s nobody left here that loves you?”

Paul bit his lip and shook his head again.

“I know better than that.”

Gene’s lip twitched, almost trembled. He reached out, arm looping around Paul’s shoulders. Paul leaned into the hold, eyes sliding shut, and then, he was wrapping both arms around Gene, tight and hopeless. Neither of them let go for several moments, Gene only pulling back to speak, slowly, the words thick.

“Then eat your muffin. We’ll figure things out from there.”


	9. 'cause if you're not really here

They’d paid to stash the car up with the hotel’s breakfast. The interior of the car smelled like muffins and assorted warmed-over pastries. Gene had been vying to fill some of the ziplock bags with oatmeal and eggs, but Paul talked him out of it. Winced him out of it, really.

“There’s other people here. We can’t take everything.” Paul rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t want to be scooping eggs out of a baggie.”

“You won’t care what you’re eating out of once you’re hungry,” Gene countered. Plenty of people had already taken what they wanted, anyway. There wasn’t a single box of cereal or cup of yogurt left. Anything that was prepackaged was long gone before they made it downstairs. “You’ve never been hungry. I hope it stays that way.”

Paul hadn’t argued.

Half the world. That meant the supply chains were terminally disrupted. Driving down the highway-- trying to drive down the highway-- Gene wondered why there’d been any workers at the hotel at all. Had they already checked on their families? Were they getting time and a half, or double pay? Did they actually care about the lodgers? Or were they there just trying to force a sense of normalcy to their world?

He didn’t know, but he suspected. Thinking about them, hell, even thinking about what was going to happen to the rest of the world, the rest of the country, was easier than thinking about Shannon and Nick and Sophie and his mother. Taking care of Paul was easier, too. As long as there was the distraction of a plan, a destination, he’d be all right. And once they got to Peter’s, he’d… he’d just go from there. Three guys to try to take care of. Two that he hadn’t taken care of in over a decade. Fuck, over three decades, honestly. He could do it. He thought he could do it.

He still wasn’t letting Paul drive. Not that they were getting anywhere fast. He was still having to pull over, get off the highway and onto weird exits, depending on the pile-ups. The GPS was no good-- not that the GPS really mattered at this point, given how far they were traveling, so long as they didn’t end up going south-- so he didn’t really care about trying to reroute, just followed the other cars.

“You’re gonna run out of gas soon.”

“I’m trying to find a place.”

Paul took a pastry from one of the ziplock bags and started eating it, the crumbs falling onto his pants. He was playing with Gene’s phone again, lips tight. He didn’t seem to be texting anyone. Following news websites, Gene assumed. Gene took another exit, hoping to see the sight of at least one still-working gas station. The only real markers for that were people standing there, and lines of cars. He imagined that the gas stations themselves had already been looted of food and anything useful--more reason that they should’ve gotten every bit of food out of the hotel that they could have. And he wouldn’t put it past anyone, anyone desperate, to start trying to claim ownership of something like working gas station pumps, try to restrict their usage, or charge people extra for the privilege--or worse than that.

He needed to tell Paul that. He needed to tell Paul that they had to be careful. This trip was going to take them longer than he’d counted on. And they didn’t have much to offer. The hundred-dollar bills in his wallet and the credit cards, the latter of which hadn’t worked in the hotel. Paul didn’t have a dime on hand. And they didn’t have the old bartering pieces, either. No purseful of autographed pictures like Ace used to keep for when he got into tight spots. But who the hell would want an autograph now?

He stopped, letting the engine idle for easily the third time in an hour, staring at the license plate of the car half a foot away. Another pileup several cars in front of him, probably, or maybe a truck a half a mile out that didn’t have room to pass a crash. Abruptly, Paul turned the phone screen towards him. Gene shook his head.

“I can’t see it. Move it this way, the glare’s messing with it.”

Paul tilted the phone.

It was an old photo, the colors faded. The four of them in a pool, chicken-fighting. Ace, rail-thin, sitting on Gene’s shoulders and laughing; Peter on Paul’s. It had to have been from really early on. How early, he wasn’t quite sure.

“Where’d you find this? Is it from Lydia’s book?”

“I don’t know where it came from. It popped up when I looked on google.” Paul took a bite of the pastry, shifting in his seat. “It’s from before we ever made a record.”

“That early?”

“Yeah. Look how short Ace’s hair is. It’s from back when we went over to his parents’ place for the Fourth of July.”

“Then…. That’d make it, what, ’73?”

“’73.” Paul tried to expand the picture, spreading out his finger and thumb across the screen, but he ended up closing out of it on accident. “Shit, I’ll get it back--”

“No, I--”

“Here.”

Gene swallowed. Paul had retrieved the picture anyway. Paul was looking at him, not quite curiously, not quite sadly. Like he was trying to gauge his reaction. Gene glanced in front of him, just to make sure the traffic hadn’t moved, and then, reluctantly, he held his palm out. Paul handed him the phone.

He couldn’t really remember the day very well. But he remembered the bathing suits--and that was fucking bizarre, remembering something as useless as that, or would’ve been, if Peter hadn’t been wearing a blue, patterned Speedo that barely held in his dick and balls. Who the hell wore that to his bandmate’s parents’ house for a cookout, he didn’t really know, but-- well, probably that was the only swimsuit Peter owned; that was about the only mitigating factor.

Despite himself, he stretched the picture out with his fingers. Peter and Ace’s hair was short, comparatively, Peter’s hands blurred in motion. The only two visible faces were Peter and Paul’s, Peter’s mouth wide open, while Paul’s was kind of pinched, like he was in the middle of saying something when the photo was taken, a splash of water maybe a quarter-second from connecting with his face. A splash from Gene.

Gene’s mouth felt like rubber, throat almost burning hot, and he shook his head, handing back the phone. He didn’t want to keep looking at it. He didn’t want to have to reconcile the kids in the picture with the wreck sitting next to him and the wrecks he was driving towards. He didn’t want to see any more of the way things had been between them that far back, before they’d made a dime, before anyone but their girlfriends bothered to show up to concerts. Maybe even before--

“Did we have--” Paul started, and Gene’s eyes went from the road back to his face, almost daring him to say the rest, painful as a sucker punch. He said it anyway. “Did we have the talismans then?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I wanna hear it.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

The words came out more cruelly than he meant them to. He didn’t want to think about that aspect of the old days at all anymore.

It used to just irritate both of them, thinking about the crimefighting, thinking about how, once, they’d really--had something. Had powers they’d sometimes used for good. Could really do the shit in their stageshow, the flying and firebreathing and all that, instead of having to rely on wire harnesses and gargled kerosene. It stung to recall that KISS’ magic hadn’t always been manufactured.

Worse, the public had never forgotten it, either. It had only been in the last ten years that interviewers had finally stopped asking if KISS would have another go at crimefighting. Gene would laugh, say they needed to leave it to law enforcement, ask if they really wanted four old guys stomping around and cleaning up the streets, when the truth was they hadn’t even been capable of it since 1980.

Now it just made him think of the meet and greet, the people who’d clung onto him as they vanished away, like they thought he could save him. Like they were pleading for him to step out and be that superhero one last time.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t have saved anybody even with the talismans. The best he could do was right here, right now, trying to go back to the guys. Piece something together for all of them.

Traffic had started moving again. Gene shifted his foot to the gas pedal, still feeling Paul’s eyes on him. Paul never could leave well enough alone, really. Kept picking at old scabs so insistently, and then got surprised when they bled. He’d tortured himself over Victoria in the hotel, and now he was moving even further back, the do-you-remembers just fresh slices of pain. Paul didn’t seem to understand that they wouldn’t propel him forward. They wouldn’t help him look ahead.

He turned to face Paul again, apt to scold him, when he realized that wasn’t it at all, just by the downcast look on his face. Paul wasn’t trying to make them both more miserable by looking at what they’d lost. He was just trying to find something to hold on to. Some foothold in their shared past, some meaning. Something leftover to warm them both by, like an oven door cracked open. Like that moment yesterday, that burning feeling, the smoke he could’ve sworn was in his throat. The door Paul had said was locked, that Gene never should have been able to get through, and that insurmountable, awful weight of the connection between the four of them. Maybe he was kidding himself. Clinging the way Paul was, for all he insisted otherwise. But maybe--

“It still matters, Gene.”

He was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Photo mentioned can be found [here](https://66.media.tumblr.com/933662dbe9d5bf51de8d74df0dfb6802/373dcafa0045ea14-cf/s540x810/f921d15b894f54a8ede3c305085290e08355acf5.png).


	10. then the stars don't even matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All that was really left now were the remnants. A curtain, some costumes, some paint. Some memories they just kept repackaging. And the show.
> 
> Prequel to "the end of the world tour." Four ex-bandmates and even-more-ex-superheroes reunite in the aftermath of Thanos' snap, and attempt to adjust. **In this chapter:** Paul and Gene go into hunter-gatherer mode.

About an hour later, Gene pulled into a gas station. Pulled in line for one, anyway. He kept glancing warily in front of him, watching as the line inched forward. Looking over at the door locks as if they weren’t automatic.

He had to size everything up, because he wasn’t sure if Paul could think that far ahead. Maybe that was unkind of him. But Paul had pretty bad instincts in general. He’d never been in a situation where things could escalate much past him getting called a faggot or a beer bottle getting thrown in his face. Desperate people, scared people, would do anything for a little control, whether it was turn a gas station into a fiefdom or loot the whole damn place and rob everyone who tried to get near it. Gene’s luxury vehicle-- he didn’t even know the model; he so rarely drove the damn thing, and it was one of about six or seven that usually sat in his garage-- was probably its own gigantic target. He was afraid to get out to pump gas, assuming there was any left by the time they got to the pumps themselves.

“I’ll get it.” It was Paul again. He seemed to only really be present for spurts at a time, like a wind-up toy. Rambling conversation, then half an hour or an hour of silence. His voice was still cracking pitifully when he did speak up. Gene had been tempted to tell him to try and sleep ever since they’d left the hotel, but he seemed to want to stay awake.

“No, you don’t need to.”

“I’ll get it,” Paul repeated. “Someone might recognize you. It’d be over if they did.”

So he had thought about it. Gene shook his head.

“Someone might recognize you.”

Paul laughed shortly.

“Nobody recognizes me without a star on my eye,” he said. “I know that.”

“I can get it.”

“I’ll get it. Give me your credit card. Or cash, whatever.”

“Paul--”

“I’ll get it, okay? You’re in bad shape, if somebody--”

“Paul, you’re really one to talk about bad shape right now.”

“Walking around in dragon boots doesn’t constitute a workout. You’re sixty-five.”

“You’re sixty-two.” But he relinquished one of his credit cards and two twenties from the hotel change. Paul stuck both in his pocket as the line inched forward.

“And take off your watch before you go out there,” Gene added.

Paul gazed at his wrist like he’d almost forgotten he was wearing it, and then he shook his head.

“It’s broken anyway, nobody’s gonna want--”

“It’s still a nice watch. Take it off.”

Paul handed it over. Another set of trapped memories in glass and gold. The metal was warm where it had been wrapped around his wrist. 

Thankfully, there wasn’t a scuffle. Nobody interacted with him as he got out the cash and filled up the tank-- apparently, the credit card processor wasn’t working there, either. Gene was watching Paul every second of the way, hand on the door, prepared to jump out if anyone tried anything. But there was nothing. Gene caught Paul turn his head towards the station’s store itself while he pumped the gas, and Gene shook his head several times. It wasn’t worth it. Not right now. Just from his vantage point in the car, he could see broken glass from the door, and graffiti sprayed across the ice chest.

Gene unlocked the car door once Paul was finished at the pump. Paul handed him back his card, and Gene gave him back his watch. Paul looked at it before sticking it in the glove compartment. He still seemed tense as hell, even when Gene was on the road again.

“How far have we gone? Check the odometer.”

“Two hundred thirty miles.”

“That’s all? In two days?” Paul hesitated. “I know we only drove a couple hours last night, but… God, shouldn’t we at least be in Las Vegas by now?”

“Not with this traffic.”

“Gene-- how far is it from California to Connecticut? Do you know? Three thousand miles or something, right?”

Gene was surprised Paul didn’t instinctively go to Gene’s phone for the answer. Nick and Sophie would have. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel in a poor bid to shove the thought to the side.

“Right at it.”

“If… if you figure-- we’ve been on the road, what, seven hours total, maybe? I can barely fucking add--” Paul exhaled softly, scrambling around in the middle console, where he managed to find a half-dozen old backstage passes, a pen, loose change, and some napkins. He started scribbling on the napkins, tongue peeking out from between his teeth. “Seven hours, two hundred thirty miles… that’s about… that’s thirty-two miles an hour. Jesus Christ. How long is this gonna take, at that rate?”

“Use the distance formula.”

“What?”

Paul had just used it earlier, even though he wasn’t aware of it. Something besides color theory must have stuck from junior high.

“Distance equals rate times time. Just solve for time.”

“What?”

More than forty years since he’d tried to teach anyone how to solve a word problem. Right now, the car was only inching forward again, giving him enough time to glance over at Paul’s calculations.

“Subtract two hundred thirty from three thousand. Then divide that by thirty-two.”

Paul started scribbling again.

“Eighty-six point five. Eighty-six point five… that’s in hours?”

Gene nodded.

It was uncomfortable, feeling Paul come to the conclusion Gene had started to process for himself hours before. Actually getting the concrete numbers in there. Going crosscountry on a tour bus, with no hotels, would have taken them about two and a half days straight. But this…

“Gene, if we’re… if we’re real optimistic and get nine or ten hours a day in of just pure driving, if nothing happens, then--”

“We’ll get there in eight or nine more days.”

Paul didn’t say anything else, leaning forward in his seat, staring at the scribbles on the napkin. Gene said it for him.

“I’ve got about $690 in cash.”

“Is that… do you think that’s enough?”

Gene wasn’t sure. His baselines were all off. He didn’t know what a normal hotel was supposed to cost. Gas wasn’t something he’d ever really had to worry about; it had only been in the last twenty or so years that he’d even had a driver’s license. And the cost of gas and food-- especially with how unlikely it was that any suppliers were going to be able to get anywhere-- that would drive the prices sky-high, inflation would-- 

“If we’re able to use cards again, I know we’ll be all right,” he said.

“What if we’re not?”

“I think we will be.” The credit cards, at least, ought to start working again, at least in some places, over the next… over the next day or two, maybe. Hopefully. The half a world that was left still relied on those transactions to run. But there were still too many variables. Working cards wouldn’t mean a damn thing if they couldn’t get to another working gas station. The food-- well, they had a few gallon ziplock bags full of muffins and pastries. Probably enough for the days ahead, if need be, as long as they were careful about rationing.

Paul didn’t push for any more reassurance. The endless line of the road stretched before them, the radio reports and air conditioner their only reprieve from the silence as Gene drove on.

\--

They managed to hit the outskirts of Las Vegas later that day. They parked at a car dealership and took twenty minutes or so to pace around (“a blood clot’s a bad way to go”), and another muffin or two each.

The dealership itself hadn’t been vandalized or looted yet, just abandoned. They were able to get in-- Gene guessed that when everyone had started to disappear, the workers fled, and no one had cared enough to lock the doors behind them.

Inside the dealership, it was weird. Almost worse than the arena had been yesterday. Gene was reminded of some old  _ Twilight Zone  _ episode, where the astronaut woke up to a world without people. Like a studio set minus the cast and crew. The show cars inside, perfectly waxed, perfectly lit up, and roped off like a VIP entrance, looked somehow more like hearses now.

Paul looked like he felt kind of bad about it as he started filling up red and white paper bags with what remained of the popcorn in the machine. Gene wasn’t feeling an ounce of regret, getting the water bottles out of peoples’ offices and filling them all up with water from the fountain. He was even digging in the breakroom’s fridge and freezer.

“They’re probably not coming back,” he said, at Paul’s appalled expression. Gene had a handful of lunchboxes gathered up already.

“But--”

“You took the popcorn.”

“They had that out there for free. I don’t wanna be an asshole about--”

“Paul, we don’t really know how long we’re going to be out on the road. All bets are off.”

Paul hesitated. For a minute Gene thought he was going to argue him down, but he just shook his head.

“Don’t take more than you think we’ll need,” he said finally. Gene watched him walk towards the other side of the breakroom, sticking quarters and dollar bills that he must’ve gotten from the console of Gene’s car earlier into the snack machine. Gene was ashamed he hadn’t thought of that himself.

“Get the caloric stuff.”

“I know, I know.”

Still embarrassed over Gene taking the lunches from the breakroom. Well, maybe that was to be expected. Paul didn’t know just how bad their situation could get. No firsthand experience at all with actual hunger. Actual, desperate want.

Gene sorted and repacked the lunches up according to perishability. Stuff like yogurts and sandwiches would have to be eaten pretty quickly; the fruits and vegetables would last a little longer. He gathered up the various drinks inside, too. There was a box of leftover Chinese food that part of him wanted to heat up in the microwave, never mind the awful look he might garner from Paul in return-- he wouldn’t understand. The thought of all that food going to waste made him want to gobble every last bit of it he could hold, past the point of preference or discomfort or pride. It always had.

In the end, they left the dealership with a plethora of water bottles, a few more bags of popcorn and the contents of about five people’s lunches. Paul had gotten about ten bucks’ worth of honey bun doughnuts out of the vending machine, and something else that he didn’t give to Gene until about half an hour later, when they were long since back on the road. He pushed it over almost shyly.

“Here. It’s not gourmet, but…”

It was a package of chocolate chip cookies.

All of a sudden, Gene’s eyes started to water and burn, just at the sight of that. Stupid, to start to cry over a package of cookies when nothing else had brought him to tears the entire day. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. He couldn’t seem to keep from it. He was thinking about nearly forty years of asking for cookies at every restaurant they went to as a band. Even when he knew they weren’t on the menu. Paul remembered. Paul was trying to indulge him. Trying to be kind.

“Paul--”

“You don’t have to go it alone. Not anymore. I’m going to pull my own weight from now on, I swear. You won’t have to be carrying me around. We’ll-- we’ll take care of each other.”

“We--”

He couldn’t focus on the road ahead. It was getting too blurred-up, and he pulled over, breathing hard, tears beginning to drip down his face. He kept trying to hold them back. Trying to push forward all the practicalities that, up until now, had saved him from breaking down in front of Paul. He couldn’t. Paul’s hand found its way to his shoulder, rubbing in a reassuring, familiar rhythm, and he kept on for the scant minutes it took for Gene’s breaths to stop hitching, for Gene to scrub his eyes dry and get back on the road.


	11. now i'm filled to the top with fear

It didn’t seem like traffic would ever get any better. As it started to get dark, Gene’s arms sore and stiff, he turned to Paul.

“Put it into the phone. See if there’s another hotel nearby.”

Paul looked grim, even in the dimming light of the car interior.

“See, that’s actually what I was thinking about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno if we should stay at any more hotels.”

Gene had been wondering about that himself, but he hadn’t wanted to deprive Paul of another creature comfort before he had to. He nodded, waiting on Paul’s next words.

“I mean, if hotels really do run you over a hundred a night,” and Paul, who had never paid for a hotel out of his own pocket in his life, sounded vaguely baffled at his own number, “and we’re never able to use the cards, then we’ll be broke way before we get to Peter’s, won’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“You thought of that, didn’t you?”

“I thought of that.” Gene hesitated. “There’s a few other reasons, too.”

“What?”

“You remember what New York was like back in the seventies.”

“Sure I do. What, you’re worried about getting mugged? But that was back when everybody carried cash on hand. You couldn’t go to any city in the States without--”

“That’s not it. Half the population’s gone now. That means half the law enforcement, half the emergency personnel, half the fire departments, half the hospital staff. And that’s assuming any of them came in to work today.”

“Gene--”

“I’m saying our lives come cheaper now than they have in fifty years. There’s no oversight. If we stop at a hotel, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tries to steal our car right out of the parking lot.”

“But you can’t hotwire cars anymore, they have all the electronic shit--” Paul started, then shook his head.

“Paul, what happens to people when the bottom falls out of their lives?”

“They have a nervous breakdown, if they can afford it,” Paul said flatly.

“What happens to a whole civilization?”

Paul didn’t say anything. He reached for Gene’s phone, from where it sat charging on the middle console, and started swiping through it. He’d always been a little better at handling that kind of thing than Gene had, probably because his kids were so much younger. Three years old and already glued to an ipad. Gene’s throat felt suddenly swollen, and he let out a small breath.

“As a kid, I didn’t understand it. All I knew was that we had to go out and sell fruit or we’d go hungry. Hungrier. I didn’t know why that was. I just accepted it. I didn’t know it was because things were falling apart.” He swallowed. “People are going to get scared, Paul. They’re going to get scared, and then they’re going to get angry. They’ll look for somebody to blame--”

“Who the hell could anyone blame? There’s no technology on Earth that could’ve done this shit. No magic, either. You know that.”

“Is that really going to matter?”

Paul went silent again for awhile. Scrolling down with his thumb on the phone, the light distracting. Gene wondered what he was looking at, news posts or twitter feeds or some more photos, but he didn’t turn the phone around to show him anything. Gene kept driving for awhile longer, maybe ten or twenty minutes, before Paul spoke again.

“Pull over and let me drive.”

“What?”

“We’ll do it in shifts. We’ll sleep in the car.” Paul cleared his throat. “I’m probably good for another couple hours. If I can find someplace that looks safe enough to park, I will.”

“Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“Yeah. I’m up for it. Take a nap.”

Gene didn’t really know if he could nap. Every muscle that wasn’t aching felt hopelessly tensed up and tight. The packed lunches they’d eaten hours before hadn’t curbed the gnawing fear in his gut at all, hadn’t eased his brain from working overtime, going through all possible scenarios. Thinking about a nation, a world, collapsing at his feet.

He pulled over anyway. Paul swapped seats with him, adjusting the driver’s seat in that fussy way of his, like two and a half inches really made much of a difference. It was an odd comfort to see him do that. As he eased back onto the road, rejoining the caravan of lonely carlights that seemed infinite across the desert, Gene opened up the glove compartment, finding Paul’s watch, the driver’s manual, the car registration. He found a pack of Juicy Fruit, too, and opened that up, unwrapping and crinkling the foil wrapping in his hand. He offered a stick to Paul, but Paul shook his head, handing him back his phone instead.

Gene was preparing himself for another old photo or a news bulletin. But all that greeted him on the screen was a playlist. Next to him, Paul shifted awkwardly.

“It’s not exactly lullabies, I’m sorry. But I was getting tired of the traffic reports.”

“Paul--”

“I had to do something for you. You can play it if you wanna. You don’t have to.”

Gene plugged the phone back up and turned up the volume. The plaintive whine of Led Zeppelin’s “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do” started up, sounding tinny and artificial, nothing like the crackle of vinyl. Too far removed. Paul was half-mouthing, half-saying each lyric of the old b-side, and for the faintest, kindest moment Gene could almost see him there in his parents’ apartment. In his mind, Paul’s lips were pursed, face devoid of lines, frizzy curls down past his shoulders. Paul was leaning over the record player, putting on that 45, before Gene shut his eyes and fell asleep.

Gene didn’t dream much. His world was too concrete for that. Every so often he kept hearing mumbles and murmurings, his vision scattering with old images that didn’t seem so old at all in the unreality of sleep. He kept seeing the band again, still at first, but then coming to life, flickering like matinee idols onscreen in their Destroyer outfits, backstage at some crummy venue. He didn’t seem to be a part of it himself at first, as if he were a fan, just watching, until he took a sudden breath and felt the spandex and leather clinging to his skin, familiar as his own heartbeat.

Paul was next to him, talking. It seemed like he was on the phone, but the phone was wrong, too small. It didn’t fit, and it didn’t make sense. He was talking to Ace as if Ace wasn’t standing right there in front of them, pacing back and forth like a nervous animal.

“Yeah. We’re fine. I told you.”

Gene strained, but he couldn’t hear Ace’s response, for all his lips moved. He turned to Paul, questioningly, then to Peter, sitting on his own luggage in a corner of the room. No responses.

“I… no, I didn’t. I didn’t feel any-- Ace, I don’t need this right now, all right? I don’t--

“Don’t wake him up. It’s late. He’s not gonna want to--” Paul paused, shaking his head at whatever he heard on the other end. Or what he heard from Ace. It was so peculiar to watch. Almost like one of those stage plays the college had put on, where the rest of the players froze up when the spotlight wasn’t on them. “You always think that, Ace, but it’s not-- no, you don’t know how it is. I’m not scared. I--”

\--

Gene woke up with a start early the next morning, not so much disoriented as stiff. Most of the front windshield was blocked off by luggage and a weird stack of snack foods--Paul must’ve put that there, he realized--and the other windows had the mesh screens up, leaving only the barest hint of the sun through the cracks. 

Paul was still asleep in the driver’s seat. He’d leaned it back, but hadn’t done anything else, still secure in his seatbelt. Gene shifted a little, a jacket dropping from his lap when he did, a jacket that wasn’t his. Oh. Paul had put it there, too. A makeshift blanket. Paul didn’t need to try so hard with him.

Slowly, Gene unbuckled his seatbelt, leaning gingerly over the driver’s seat to inspect the odometer. Paul must’ve drove for at least three hours before pulling over, just based on that. That meant they had to be almost out of gas again. He moved the luggage out from where it covered the windshield, at least on his side, to try and get a better idea of their surroundings without waking Paul up, but a small grunt and a little shifting around told him he hadn’t managed it.

“Morning, Paul.”

Paul managed another grunt, stretching his arms and turning to look at him. Just two days in and the scraggly mix of black and gray stubble on his face was already starting to look horrible. Gene knew he probably looked even worse.

“Hey.”

“You did a lot of driving.”

Paul shrugged.

“Don’t get too excited. We’re still on I-15.” He stretched out. “Or we were, at least. I had to do a couple of detours for gas.”

“You filled up the tank? Paul, you should’ve woken me up before you did that.”

“The towns were just a McDonalds and two gas stations. It was fine.”

“A McDonalds?” Gene started to perk up on automatic. A conditioned response. Early mornings on tour always used to mean fast food, in those lean in-between days. They still did, when he got a hankering, or when Paul didn’t feel like going to the effort of hounding some poor gofer for five-star shit.

“It wasn’t open.” Paul stretched out again. “Just… just the station. I don’t know how in the hell that cashier hasn’t gotten robbed. I guess not many people have come through here yet.”

Gene retrieved one of the gallon bags of muffins from the back seat. He offered it to Paul, who broke off half a muffin and began to eat. Gene took the other half. It wasn’t as dried out as he’d expected.

“There wasn’t much food left over there, but I bought what was left.” Paul gestured, and Gene realized--the snack foods stacked to block off the windshield. Gene opened his mouth, about to tell Paul that had been a stupid move--might as well have put out a sign advertising their food--but he opted against it. Paul had pulled himself together far more than Gene had thought he was capable of. He wasn’t going to call him out on some missteps when they hadn’t cost anything.

“Thanks.” He moved the snacks anyway, stuffing them in the back and draping Paul’s jacket over them. “You don’t have to overextend yourself, you know.”

“I know, but--”

“We’ll take care of each other. That’s what you said yesterday. Don’t wear yourself out doing it all.”

Paul hesitated. His dark eyes, never really unreadable, were flickering from Gene’s face to somewhere around his shoulder.

“It helps, okay? I-I didn’t realize how much it helped to be doing something.”

“I get that.” He did. Gene knew exactly what he meant. A plan meant purpose. A plan meant focus. One temporary means to barricade out too many thoughts of what they’d just lost. It fed him. It always had.

“That’s… that’s why you keep on like you do. You’re so…” Paul shook his head abruptly. “I’m not trying to take over. But I think I can drive us for awhile.” 

“We’ll switch after lunch.”

Paul nodded. Gene had never thought he’d be so grateful to see him reach for another muffin without being prompted.


	12. that it's all just a bunch of matter

They were making better time with Paul behind the wheel. Gene wasn’t sure if it was an indication of Paul’s driving skills or just because they’d made it to Utah. The lines of cars weren’t nearly as infinite as they’d been in California and Nevada. At points, Gene could almost pretend the traffic was regular, convince himself they were only on the road to a show, before another news bulletin hit the radio, or Paul glanced at him with that too-open, pleading look, and he had to face reality again.

Paul pulled over around one-thirty, and Gene ate his cookies and another of those lunches they’d lifted from the auto dealership. It was some sort of turkey sandwich-- he didn’t bother to toss the turkey out of it before diving in, for all that they hadn’t had a cooler to put the perishables in. Paul looked mildly concerned but said nothing, taking one of the honey buns, a water bottle, and some wizened celery and carrot sticks from another of the lunch boxes for his own meal.

“Have you talked to Ace yet?”

Paul looked a little caught.

“Yeah, last night. I keep forgetting about the timezone difference.” He bit into another celery stick. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“No, you didn’t. How’d he sound to you?”

Paul shrugged.

“He sounded like Ace. Hell, I even think he might’be been sober.”

“He’s been sober for years now.” Gene wasn’t sure why he was trying to defend Ace when he’d rarely avoided tossing Ace under the bus himself over the last several years. He just felt like he needed to, somehow. “He’s worried about Pete. Did you get to talk to him?”

“Peter? He was asleep.” The honey bun glaze was shiny around Paul’s mouth. Gene motioned for Paul to rub it off, but he swiped so vaguely around his lips that it only smeared worse. “I didn’t wanna bother him.”

“We ought to talk to him. It’s three-thirty over there now. He’ll be up.”

“Not right now.”

“Why not? I think it might be good for us.”

“I just don’t feel like it, all right?”

“You should feel like it. We’re driving to his house.”

“I know that!” The flash of emotion seemed to die as suddenly as it appeared, burning back down into Paul’s usual bitterness. “It’s nothing personal.”

Nothing personal. Gene let out a breath that was half a grunt, and Paul flinched. A few minutes later, Paul had started the car up again, driving even though he’d promised to switch after lunch. Gene put on the playlist Paul had made for him, looking through the songs. No unexpected numbers in there. Stuff they both liked. The Beatles, the Stones, and more Led Zeppelin. Paul would lie about it at the little q&a sessions on the kruises and so on, but the man had more or less stopped listening to new music, outside of what his kids forced him to hear, somewhere around 1993. That was fine. Gene had, too.

There was some wistful Van Morrison. A song or two from Mark Lindsay and Neil Diamond. Years ago, in a bitter mood, Paul had tried to make the comparison between him and Neil--a fellow ambivalently-Jewish New Yorker screwed over in the divorce courts-- and Gene’s ability to stomach the malaise dried up the moment he realized that Neil’s songwriting aptitude was leagues beyond Paul’s, even at his most soppy. He’d never told Paul that. “Thank the Lord for the Night Time” rattled its way through, reminding Gene of a dance he’d been to in his freshman year of college. He’d gone stag, danced a couple times with a mousey little thing with a scar on her mouth. Probably from a harelip surgery. He didn’t know why he remembered such a stupid detail when he’d never seen the chick after that. She probably didn’t recall their ten or fifteen minutes together well enough to know she’d danced with Gene Simmons before he  _ was _ Gene Simmons.

She might be gone now, he realized suddenly. Fifty-fifty shot.

He wondered, sickly, who else had disappeared. If Paul’s playlist housed more ghosts than he realized. Brian Jones’ sitar had never struck Gene as eerie before, but the thought that Mick Jagger’s imperfect, swaggering shouts and screams might be those of a dead man now made him swallow thickly. He’d never even met the guy; there were some audiences you just couldn’t buy, and yet just the thought of a world without him felt dimmer. There were some people you expected to live through everything. Paul had confessed as much to him the day Michael Landon died-- “that’s it, Gene, there went my childhood,” and Gene couldn’t quite relate. Now-- now, it was beyond ridiculous, wondering who was living and who was dead out of a bunch of musicians he didn’t or barely knew, when he knew his whole family was gone.

He needed to quit wondering and start being proactive again. He stopped the playlist, fiddling awkwardly with the phone until he’d gotten on youtube and typed something into the search bar, clicking the top result. He had to skip over an ad-- he’d never figured out how to block those on his phone, though Sophie had tried to show him-- but after that, his own walking bass line was raw and obvious. Ace on lead. Pete’s drums--

Paul reacted almost instantly, swerving his head towards the sound long before his own plaintive cry started up.

“Gene, c’mon.”

“It’s your favorite song, by your favorite singer.”

“Love Gun” was barrelling through the phone.

\--

Paul relented and swapped seats with him after about an hour, letting Gene drive until it was about to get dark. They’d managed to only get about midway through Utah. They stopped at fairly regular intervals to walk around and so on, but beyond the traffic, what really ate up their time the most was finding working gas stations. On the radio, they heard plenty of news bulletins about FEMA initiatives, food and gas trucks--but traveling through the desert, they rarely saw much evidence of them.

What they were starting to see was regular cars and flatbed trucks on the side of the road, piled high with pilfered goods from supermarkets and convenience stores. Sometimes designer boutiques. Gene surmised that the bulk of the fancier spreads had come from California and maybe Nevada. The non-perishables were going at what he figured had to be at least a three hundred percent markup. He thought about the $690 he still had in cash, and his stomach twisted.

Paul took hold of the phone again, changing up the route until they ended up headed towards Fremont Indian State Park.

“What exactly do you wanna see over there?”

“A shower,” Paul said flatly. “The website says they’ve got them at the campsite. Beds, too.”

“And bears.”

“And refrigerators.”

Gene was reluctant, but he stopped anyway. They weren’t the only ones who’d had the same idea, it turned out. The same idea, but better. Gene counted three RVs parked and hooked up at the campsite. The lights inside the RVs were on, and there was movement.

People. Real people again. The others he’d seen hadn’t felt like people, the ones behind the wheel, the ones hawking goods. Hadn’t felt real at all, just hordes, like the stadium crowds, or the student demonstrators way back, swathes that had lost all identity. His own relief was almost palpable to see anyone just-- seeming normal and human.

He hadn’t spoken to a soul in person in two days now, except for Paul. He didn’t realize how much he’d been craving some outside contact until the option was in front of him. His sense of wariness was gone as he parked the car and got out, not heading for any of the cabins but for the nearest of the RVs. It was an older model, not well kept up, at least the exterior. He could hear Paul getting out across from him. Hear the slam of his door.

“Gene, I dunno if we should--”

“I wanna talk to them.”

He headed up the RV stairs, Paul following behind him, and knocked on the door. There was some grumbling from inside, and then a heavily graying but muscular guy greeted them. There was a pistol hooked in the belt loop of his jeans.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. We’re parked near you, we just wanted to say hello.”

“They hungry?” a woman’s voice called out from the other end of the RV. The man mumbled incoherently before answering in full.

“Dammit, Charlotte, we ain’t giving up any more of our food to whoever just shows up!”

“You shut up!” and then, a little kinder, “now come on in, I’m fixing supper right now. How many you got with you?”

“There’s just two of us, me and--c’mon, this is my friend, Paul--I’m Gene--”

The guy moved to let them in. They followed him all the way to the RV’s narrow kitchen, where Charlotte was, apparently, fixing supper. Charlotte was older than the guy by at least fifteen, maybe even twenty years, with dyed-black hair and crepey skin, eyes that weirdly pale brown that only age could grant. But she was warm.

“Don’t pay Maury no mind, he’s just looking out for us.” Charlotte smiled, revealing teeth too even to be anything but dentures, as she retrieved a can of Crisco from a dingy cabinet, scooped out some barehanded, and stuck it in a bowl already full of flour and milk. “You got that pretty car. Where you headed?”

“Connecticut.”

“In  _ that _ ?” Maury scoffed. “You don’t drive cross country in that luxury sh--”

“You hush,” Charlotte said. “We’re going to Colorado.”

They didn’t sound like they were from Colorado. They didn’t sound like they were from anywhere out West at all. Judging from the expression on Paul’s face, he was thinking the same thing.

“My grandbabies live out there. Maury’s girl, too.” Charlotte paused. “When everything happened t’other day, they called up Maury. Was checking up on me. They said we want you with us. So Maury, he packed us up. We got outta Nevada yesterday.”

“So did we. But we started in California. We might’ve seen you on the road and not known it.”

“Maybe.” Maury opened a large bag of Doritos and pushed it onto the table. Gene hesitated to reach for it, given Maury’s response earlier about the food, but Maury waved his hand in a way that made him feel sort of compelled. Paul grabbed a handful, too. He was watching Charlotte work the mixture into dough with more interest than the task was probably worth.

“I told the grandbabies it’s the end of the world. It don’t really matter whether me and Maury stayed where we was or go. Maury, he wanted to go--”

“I had to go, Charlotte,” Maury said irritably. “I had to come and take care of Sydney. Who else was gonna--”

“Who’re you meeting up with, Gene?” Charlotte was rolling the dough into sticky balls, flouring them up. Maury looked at Gene, then Paul, before turning and getting a pan out of another cabinet, greasing it down with Crisco.

“Just… just our friends.”

“Pretty far to see your friends.” Maybe it was just his accent and inflection, but Maury said it like it was just a lark, an impulse decision, as if the world hadn’t just been reduced by half. “You like a family?”

“Yeah, I like family--”

“No, no, you like a family?”

“Lack. He’s saying  _ lack _ ,” Paul said quietly.

Gene hesitated. Maury’s gaze on him was just a mild kind of curiosity. No pity. Somehow the frankness of it was better than if he’d been sympathetic.

“They’re what we have left.”

Maury nodded in assent. He brought out some red disposable cups, filling them with water-- so much for not wanting to feed them, Gene thought wryly. Then, once Charlotte stuck the biscuits in the oven (weirdly, the oven was already occupied by a pizza stone) and sat down across from them, he poured a can of baked beans into a saucepan and started to heat it on the stovetop.

“Sydney’s all I’ve got left,” he said.

“Ain’t all you got left,” Charlotte tossed back.

“Outta my immediate family, I mean.” A pause. “She’s just six.”

“Granddaughter?” Paul asked, taking a few sips of water.

“Daughter.” Maury started to try to smile. “We weren’t counting on it when me and her mother got together. Hell, I-I got kids older than her mother. But we went for it. I ain’t seen Sydney in two years now.”

“Did she, uh, live--”

“With Charlotte’s grandkids? Hell, no, she lived with her mother. But they’re all in Colorado. And her mother’s gone now. I’m taking Charlotte on over there, and then I’m getting Sydney back.” Something in Maury seemed to peel away. Some of the abrasion. “Dunno what the hell I’m gonna be able to do for her.”

“Gonna take care of her.” Charlotte again. Gene reached for one of the cups of water.

“Barely drawing anything from social security. A kid don’t need an old man for a dad. Not when she’s young.” Maury eyed Gene warily. “You look familiar. Weren’t you in one of them rock bands? Twisted Sister or something?”

Paul laughed so hard he almost choked on his water.


	13. 'cause if you're not really here, then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prequel to “the end of the world tour.” Four ex-bandmates and even-more-ex-superheroes reunite in the aftermath of Thanos’ snap, and attempt to adjust. **In this chapter:** Gene and Paul have dinner courtesy their newfound RV friends.

They talked long enough for the biscuits to cook and the baked beans to warm up. Maury had warmed up considerably, to the point he’d fried some bacon, which neither of them ate. It all got served on cheap stoneware Gene could’ve sworn his mother had back in the sixties. It was the first hot meal he’d had in days.

Paul hadn’t said much, which wasn’t unusual. Maury talked plenty. He and Charlotte were cousins, apparently-- Charlotte went through the genealogy, but Gene could only catch about half of it-- and they’d been living in Nevada together since Maury’s wife left him. Gene got the feeling it was half to appease Charlotte’s grandkids, having someone keeping an eye on her, and half to help pay rent. There was an old Army shadowbox by one of the couches, and Gene hadn’t gotten a good enough look to make a guess on whether it was Maury’s or Charlotte’s husband’s.

“You gonna stay in Connecticut once you get there?”

Gene felt Paul’s glance on him, and he shook his head.

“No. It would be better for taxes, but…”

“Shit, you care about taxes right now?” Maury looked bewildered. “The government’s sending everyone bereavement checks. Taxes ain’t gonna even be _ due  _ next year until August.”

“Bereavement checks? They can’t do that when everyone’s lost someone--”

“That’s why they’re doing it,” Maury said flatly. “Insurance companies are flooded. The way this happened, people just… people just disappearing, they say they can’t prove someone died unless it’s on video, so they won’t pay out. Ain’t you listened to the radio at all?”

“We did some, for traffic reports, but we got sick of hearing it.”

“You ought to hear it,” Charlotte said. “It’s ten thousand dollars a person.”

“Twenty thousand for kids.” Maury dipped his biscuit in the beans. “I don’t know how they’re gonna manage that one.”

“Inflation’s going to go sky-high. It’ll be twice as bad as it was in the seventies.”

It was the first thing Paul had said in awhile. Gene looked over at him, but he didn’t add anything to his comment.

“I guess they gotta do something.” Maury finished off his biscuit and reached for another one. “Figure most everyone’s gonna blow that ten grand in a year tops. If somebody’s smart, they’ll put it in the stock market instead.”

Stocks. Gene hadn’t thought of his stocks and investments in days. KISS, of course, and licensing, but there were dozens of other endeavors under his belt. More pies than he had fingers to stick in them.. His Moneybags soda, his various properties and real estate. He hadn’t answered a single message on his phone, but maybe he should have. Some of them had to be from--

“I’ll try and put maybe half of it in stocks once I get it. Delta, maybe.” Maury looked at Gene curiously. “You think that’s a good idea? I figure the roads are gonna take years to really clear out. All those abandoned cars everywhere. Air travel, that’s what’s gonna be pushed now.”

“I don’t know.”

Maury’s eyes went from Gene’s face to the RV window, as if he could see more than an outline of Gene’s car in the darkness.  _ You should know _ , that was what his face seemed to be saying. Everyone, the fans, all that crowd, always seemed to think there was something magical to success and wealth, some insider knowledge they just weren’t privy to, some mystic connection they weren’t plugged into. It wasn’t like that. It just wasn’t like that, but fuck, he’d profited off of the idea that it was, hammered off sorts of canned suggestions. Now, faced with a guy feeding him from his own bag of chips and can of baked beans in some worn-down RV, a guy who couldn’t tell him apart from Dee Snider… now, he didn’t feel equipped to offer any advice at all.

“Get you another biscuit,” Charlotte said, pushing the still-warm pan towards Gene. He took another biscuit, then pushed the pan towards Paul on automatic. 

\--

The biscuits and beans were finished off fairly quickly between the four of them. Afterwards, Charlotte had offered Paul and Gene the RV’s shower, which was as clear a sign as Gene could’ve gotten that the both of them looked like shit. Gene had half-expected Paul to refuse out of squeamishness, preferring whatever showers the website had advertised, but he didn’t.

“Got a pack of razors, too,” Maury added. “Ain’t opened them yet.”

“No, it’s really okay,” Gene said. “We’re Jewish.”

“You don’t shave?” Unconsciously, Maury touched his own chin.

“Not right now.” Almost everything he should have been doing to mourn had already gone out the window just by virtue of circumstance. He hadn’t stayed in his house. He hadn’t even torn his clothes. He hadn’t stopped Paul from playing music when they were in the car; in fact, he’d played it himself. He felt Paul’s glance on him, and realized by Paul’s next words that he was thinking the same thing.

“Can I wash my hair?”

“Paul, you can do whatever you need to do. I’m not stopping you.”

“But is it--”

Looking for guidance out of him. In front of other people, no less. It didn’t give Gene any real sense of relief to be needed that way.

“You can shower if you’re dirty or sweaty. You just can’t enjoy it.”

Maury’s mouth twitched up, but he didn’t say anything. Paul nodded, stood up from the table, and headed towards the opposite end of the RV. Once Paul had shut the bathroom door, Maury turned to Gene again.

“You grew up with that guy, didn’t you?”

“No. I’ve just known him a long time.”

“He don’t say much.”

“No.” Then, half to avoid being accused of not saying much, either, Gene added, “He doesn’t really know how to deal with people.”

“He’s too damn old not to know how to deal with people.” Maury made a waving motion with his hand. “But I am, too. Sorry about earlier.”

“It’s fine. You’ve probably had a lot of people asking for food.”

“You dunno the half of it.” Maury snorted. “Fed ten people already. Every time we pull over for gas, people think we’ve got something. Banging on the door. Some idiot tried to get in through the window last night. S’why I keep my pistol on me. Keep trying to get Charlotte to carry--”

“I ain’t carrying nothing.”

“You need to, you can’t fend off any crazies--”

“You hush your mouth, Maury--”

Gene, sensing an old argument, opted to interrupt, clearing his throat.

“The guy that tried to get in through the window, what was he wanting?”

“Food. Supplies. Shit, I don’t know. People’re just going all to pieces. You got people trying to get all they can out of this, milk the whole damn world dry, and then you got people trying to--”

“Now Maury, we don’t need to--”

“He said he wasn’t listening to the radio.” Maury’s lips pursed. “You got people trying to die, Gene.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. I’m talking guys running straight into police stations claiming they got a bomb on them. People stealing drugs outta hospitals. There was about a hundred fifty people jumped right off the Golden Gate bridge. And that’s just what I heard about. There’s no telling.”

“Maury, let’s not talk about that,” Charlotte murmured, putting up the last of the dishes.

“I wanna talk about it.” Maury shook his head slowly. “It’s not gonna stop. People aren’t… you can’t… do for them. Every time I open that door I’m scared it’s somebody trying to take what little I’ve got.”

“Listen, Maury, I can pay you for the food, right now,” Gene said. But Maury just shook his head again, utterly bewildered expression on his face. He almost-- he almost looked hurt, and Gene wasn’t quite sure why.

“You think we fed you ’cause we wanted some money out of you?”

“I--”

“Jesus. You really can’t do for people, can you?” Maury shoved at his graying bangs. Gene could hear the sound of Paul shutting off the water. “You really can’t.”

Paul came out of the bathroom a minute or two later, dressed, his hair still wet. Gene gave him his seat and headed to the bathroom himself. The room was cramped, pink mold edging the corners of the shower and drain. Paul had remembered to drape a towel over the mirror.

He spent as little time in there as he could, just soaped up and rinsed off. His hair only got more attention by necessity. Then he toweled off halfheartedly and tugged his clothes back on, the grotesque feeling of being clean and wearing dirty clothes hitting him all at once. He bit his lip and ventured back out. Paul was at the kitchen table still with Maury and Charlotte. Maury was showing him something on his phone.

“There she is, right there on the far right.”

“She’s a pretty little girl.” Paul’s voice sounded mechanical as hell. Gene stepped forward, and Maury tilted the screen so he could see. A little blonde girl in pigtails, at the end of the row for a school picture. It must have been Sydney.

Sydney didn’t look anything like Sophie at all, but Gene found a lump in his throat anyway at seeing the child. He shoved at the bitterness threatening to overtake him, for Maury having what he no longer did, but he just couldn’t manage it. He’d spoiled Sophie so. She’d been no more than four years old and asking him for a Porsche. He’d told her he’d get her a whole fleet, if she wanted it. But she’d grown up so much since then. Gone to college. Started her own clothing line. Done advocacy work. She was twenty-two, just twenty-two--

“Gets it from her mom. They got all the kids at her school staying there for now, all the ones who ain’t got parents. I got ahold of the administration the other day to tell them to wait on me.” Maury paused. “I wanted to talk to her, but they were too tied up. Took me four hours just to get the school.”

Gene nodded dully.

“She’ll… she’ll keep you busy.”

“She’ll keep me going,” Maury corrected. “Something has to. For all of us.”


	14. i don't want to be either

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We thought if we brought everything else back, the audience would accept that part of it was gone.” Gene closed his eyes. “We thought it was about the lineup and the makeup and the stageshow. We thought the superhero thing was just what appealed to the kids.”
> 
> “We hoped that.”

**Glam Rock Gets One Last KISS… And Superheroism Gets CPR  
** June 8, 1975  
  
Perhaps one of the more envelope-pushing opening acts this year at the Center, KISS offered a merging of sound, glitter, and fire-breathing. There is an element to the new band not unlike a three-ring circus. All members paint their faces and strut the stage in outlandish leather costumes, offering a spectacle before hitting their first chord of the night. 

They’re heavy. The lyrics, the rare times they can be heard over the pounding drums and three-guitar onslaught, are aggressive, raunchy tales of rampant drug abuse and groupies. The band’s choreography simulates oral sex. We’ve seen elements of all this before-- David Bowie, Todd Rundgren, Alice Cooper-- but never has the packaging been so deliberate. Frankly, KISS is so apt to push all the buttons that the band comes off as contrived.

The lead singer closed with a statement more puzzling than the show itself. “Hey! People! We had our rock and roll party, but we’re not stopping there! That’s right! KISS is gonna take care of your city tonight! So criminals better beware! Goodnight!”

One would expect it to be yet another hokey rocker rallying cry. And yet, two hours later, a gas station robbery was stopped by four painted vigilantes, who, according to the attendant on duty, “were like f------ Superman in there.” The attendant positively identified the vigilantes as KISS upon being shown a picture after the robbery attempt. “I haven’t seen anything like that,” he admitted. “Not since Captain America thirty years ago.”

Captain America’s star-spangled tights are certainly a far cry from KISS’ seven-inch leather heels. Publicity stunt or actual superheroism, the jury’s still out, but what’s undeniable is that the same scenario plays out in whatever town KISS spends its evening in. Flying, firebreathing, teleportation… and captured criminals. They might well be one band whose afterparty is more interesting than its show.

\--

** Where Are They Now? KISS Edition  
** RockSTARR magazine was able to meet up with KISS’ original drummer, “Catman” Peter Criss, at his home. Criss is promoting his latest solo album,  _ Cat #1 _ , and plans to tour with his band (eponymously named) in the coming months.

RS: Tell us about the new album.

PETER: The idea behind  _ Cat #1 _ was kind of to… kind of to link the past to the present. That’s why my face is half in the makeup on the cover. Showing where I’d come from and where I was going now. There’s a lot of different musical styles on the album. I had fun with it.

RS: You co-wrote and sang KISS’ biggest hit in the United States, “Beth.” Any chance of a ballad on the new album?

PETER: I kinda couldn’t help myself. “Beth” is on this one. Give the fans something they ain’t ever gonna get in a show again.

RS: I remember KISS shows used to have superhero stunts. Flying, firebreathing… and then, in ’80, it all stopped. Why?

PETER: They can’t do it anymore.

RS: Do you think it’s because of the public’s tastes changing?

PETER: No, it didn’t have anything to do with the public. They just can’t do it anymore.

RS: Really? Can you go into a little more detail?

PETER: Ask me something else.

RS: Your former bandmate, Ace Frehley, played guitar on some of the tracks on your latest album. Do you plan to collab again?

PETER: Oh, sure, I can always count on Ace. You know, I was on his last album, too. We’ve always kept in touch. We do jams sometimes when we’re together, we have a good time of it.

RS: Are you in touch with your other old KISS bandmates?

PETER: I haven’t seen them in ten years.

RS: You’ve said you were writing a book on your time in the band. Is that still in the works?

PETER: Yeah. It’s been in the works for a long time. The biggest thing is tying it all together. There’s plenty of shit that went on behind the scenes that the other guys wouldn’t want me talking about.

RS: Anything you can talk about now?

PETER: If I say anything, Paul Stanley’ll be calling you up in a month trying to trash me. Nah. Wait until the book comes out.

\--

TEN: Welcome back. Now, for those just tuning in, with us here tonight on TEN, The Entertainment Network, is KISS, for an exclusive interview. So you’ve reformed the original band. You’ve played to crowds bigger than the ones back in the seventies. So the question on everyone’s mind--on the verge of a new century, a new millennium--is KISS prepared to go back on the streets as superheroes? 

GENE: Oh, no. That’s definitely not in the cards anymore.

PAUL: I’m proud of what we did back then. But we’re not the same people and this isn’t the same world. We’ve got families. We’ve all got kids. I’m not twenty-five anymore.

ACE: It’s like, y’know, being vigilantes… it was fun, it was a lot of fun. But it stopped being what KISS was about a long time ago.

TEN: And what is KISS about?

GENE: KISS is about the fans. We always give them what they want, and what they want isn’t us crimefighting. That’s for law enforcement.

PAUL: We want to set an example--

PETER: Shit, we never set an example.

ACE: KISS is about [indistinguishable].

TEN: Anything you’re planning to bring back to KISS’ shows? Old favorites getting resurrected?

PETER: Well, I still do “Beth.” Ace still shoots rockets. Gene still does his firebreathing.

TEN: Any flying?

PAUL: A bit of flying, yeah. I have a zipline for about midway through the show. Gene’s got that part during--

GENE: “God of Thunder.” The pyrotechnics are more massive than they ever were in the seventies. We’re hoping, next tour, to look into some new effects that haven’t ever been tried before by anyone. It’s really exciting.

“Haven’t ever been tried before, my ass,” Paul mumbled, pausing the subtitled video on Gene’s phone. “We gave every member of the audience fucking 3D glasses.”

“C’mon, be fair, I don’t think it’d ever been tried at a concert before.”

“Who the hell would want to?” Paul shook his head.

“We thought they wanted a spectacle.”

“We couldn’t give them a spectacle.”

Paul got up, plugging the phone in the single empty outlet in the cabin. Maury and Charlotte had even offered up their RV for the night, God help them, but they’d turned them down, aware they’d used up too much hospitality as it was. Privately, Gene regretted the decision. Twenty minutes of trying to distract themselves with old newspaper clippings and interviews they’d found online. It hadn’t helped. The park cabin was cold, the mattresses devoid of sheets. He’d had to scrounge up an emergency blanket from the back of the car, and between that and Paul’s jacket, they’d made up a sadder bed than either of them had slept with in years.

Already clad in a fresh pair of leather pants and the only sleeved shirt he’d brought in his luggage, Gene crawled under the makeshift covers once Paul turned off the light, scooting over for Paul to follow. Paul did. Gene felt Paul’s foot brush up against his. His socks were some KISS branded monstrosity from a few years ago.

“What do you think they really wanted, Gene? Did they want us flying for real again?”

“I used to think that. I don’t know anymore.” Gene shifted, trying to tug Paul’s jacket more around Paul without being too obvious about it. Paul just pushed the jacket to him instead without a word, pressing up against him for a little extra warmth. “It… it wasn’t just the flying, it was the superhero thing.”

Paul let out a sigh.

“I  _ know  _ that. But you know we couldn’t do it.”

“We thought if we brought everything else back, the audience would accept that part of it was gone.” Gene closed his eyes. “We thought it was about the lineup and the makeup and the stageshow. We thought the superhero thing was just what appealed to the kids.”

“We hoped that.”

Gene exhaled. Paul’s face was against his chest, the way it used to be twenty, thirty years ago, needy and longing. Less desperate than two nights ago. Something seemed to really be building again between them, so fragile he didn’t want to give it words.

“I never showed my kids any of the superhero stuff. I never told them it was real. Evan knew about it, but he wouldn’t ask me about it. I know he asked Pam.” Paul didn’t say anything else for a minute or two, but Gene, sensing there was more, just waited until he spoke again. “I told myself it was because I just wanted to be their dad, not… not somebody that used to… shoot laser beams out of one eye and see the future and fight criminals. I mean, it sounds like such a cartoon, I… I guess really, I was just embarrassed. But I should’ve told them. You told your kids.”

“How could I not? Shannon used to play all the old tapes for Nick when he was in the crib. Sophie, too. She used to say a couple of your catchphrases--”

“Oh, God, don’t remind me,” Paul groaned.

“What did it embarrass you for?” Constantly getting asked about it had gotten tiresome around 1980, sure, but Gene really had been proud of their crimefighting. He had every incident filed away, even the ones from when they’d first gotten the talismans, the ones that had barely gotten any press coverage. Every tape of KISS actually using any superpowers-- every tape he could get his hands on, he had. A testament to those times. Proof that they were real. He couldn’t dismiss his past when he’d been living off it ever since.

“Why do you think?”

“Because it got kind of corny? Paul, I really don’t--”

“Because I couldn’t do it anymore.” Paul shifted. “Because it just reminded me of what we all used to have.”

“Paul--”

“Ace agrees with me. You ask him sometime. He doesn’t like a bunch of people always reminding him about how he saved a theme park.”

“We could have it.”

“What?”

“We could have it. Maybe… maybe we’d never have the powers again, but…” Gene trailed helplessly, running his hand down Paul’s back. He was thinking, yet again, about how he’d gotten into Paul’s house. The burning in his throat. The connection. He kept trying to dismiss it, but it kept popping into his mind, utterly inescapable. “But we’ve got each other. I think that counts for something.”

Against his chest, Paul nodded his head.


	15. i want to be next to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prequel to “the end of the world tour.” Four ex-bandmates and even-more-ex-superheroes reunite in the aftermath of Thanos’ snap, and attempt to adjust.
> 
>  **In this chapter:** While civil unrest explodes nationwide, Paul and Gene start to have car trouble.

They left early the next morning. Gene, against Paul’s judgment, had gone out to try to drop by Charlotte and Maury’s RV, offer them some of their food and maybe a little cash, but they were already gone. Gene figured they’d be all right. Those two didn’t have too much farther to go in comparison.

Their conversations with Maury and Charlotte had gotten him thinking. Gene really had no plan for after they got to Peter’s house. The last several days had been in such weird increments. Maslo’s hierarchy of needs. Food and water and shelter and trying to keep Paul from cracking. Everything else took a hard backseat.

A week? Should they stay there for a week? That didn’t seem right, spending a shorter amount of time over there than it’d probably take to get there. Two weeks? Peter’s house was a bit of a fairytale mansion-- not a modern behemoth like Paul and Gene’s California homes, but more than large enough for four guys. He didn’t think they’d be eating the guy out of house and home, either. Gigi was-- had been-- crazy about Peter. She would’ve made sure the pantry was full. By the time they got to Connecticut, things would have to be a little more normalized, enough that they could go to the store and get what they wanted, surely. Or have it delivered. Yeah. They’d have enough.

All this mental debate and he hadn’t even bothered asking Paul his opinion. Much less Peter. Paul was driving-- had been for the last seven hours, without a complaint, making far better time now, and he had the radio back on. The report was that those bereavement checks were already being direct deposited. About ten million people had already received them. Another, maybe less surprising report, was that the credit card issues that had plagued them-- had, it turned out, plagued the nation at the very least, to the tune of billions-- had probably been resolved.

Maybe less surprising than even that were the announcements about marches on Washington and at least thirty of the state capitol buildings, people of all creeds and denominations and backgrounds demanding an answer.

_ They’re going to get scared, and then they’re going to get angry. They’ll look for someone to blame. _ Those had been his words just two days ago, and already, they were coming true. Coming true the world over, more than likely. They might start with the politicians, but whatever was left of that wily bunch of bastards would worm their way out of it. They’d have to lower their sights to the rich-- but why cast such a wide, varied net? Why not conjure up the old enemies? Why not blame the Jews?

Paul, as thoroughly, frustratingly Americanized as he was, wouldn’t want to believe that could happen. Gene decided he wouldn’t talk about it unless it became imperative. Right now, he wanted to focus on a definite, instead of a what-if.

“Paul?”

“Yeah?”

“I want us both to talk to Peter today.” 

“What for?”

“We’ve got to decide on some things.”

“What’ve we got to decide on?”

“How long we’re staying, for one. My idea was two weeks.”

“Why two weeks?”

Two weeks was enough time to gauge how Ace and Peter were going to handle themselves. He’d be able to figure out if Ace wanted to move in with Peter--Gene hadn’t discussed it with Ace any, sure, but he had the feeling Ace would probably prefer to stay with him, if he could. Ace and Peter would be good for each other. Peter could provide oversight, long-term, on Ace, make sure he stayed sober--as an ex-addict himself, Peter would know all the signs of a potential relapse way before anyone else did. And Ace… Ace used to look out for Peter in a dozen or more odd, small ways. Even during the Reunion, he’d caught Ace quietly carving out the whiskers and eye markings on Peter’s face for him on the nights when Peter couldn’t lift his arms without pain. He’d look out for him again.

“It would give us all a handle on things, decide what we want to do.” Gene cleared his throat. “Where we wanna go from here. I think Ace might want to stay with Peter for awhile.”

“You think Peter’d want Ace staying with him?” Paul seemed to hesitate. “Look, I’m not knocking the guy, but you know Ace is about as much of a slob as--”

“As I am, yeah.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that.”

“Yes, you were.” Gene sort of smiled. “I think Pete might. If he did, we’d be able to get Ace’s stuff moved for him. We owe him that much.”

Paul nodded.

“That’s all if Peter’s okay with us sticking around for that long,” Gene added. “So we both need to clear it with him--”

“Gene, not right now.”

“It doesn’t have to be right now, just sometime today--”

Paul’s face was a little scrunched up, and he kept looking at the dashboard.

“The check engine light’s been on for awhile now.” Paul let out a breath. “I thought it might just be the gas cap or something. But it could be the transmission.”

“Maybe it’s just the tires. There’s a spare in the back, right?”

“It’s your car, Gene. I’m gonna try and pull over as soon as there’s a spot to.”

It was a couple miles before Paul could pull over to the shoulder of the road. By then, Gene could hear a faint buzzing sound coming from somewhere in the car. He didn’t think Paul heard it, just judging from his lack of reaction.

Paul parked, then started examining the car. Trying to, anyway. Gene let him, even though he knew Paul didn’t really know much about cars beyond how to drive them. He’d never had to do maintenance on them. Someone had always been there. Any problem could be resolved, and resolved quickly, with the proper calls and the proper amount of cash.

“Should I turn off the engine?”

“Not yet.” Paul unscrewed and rescrewed the gas cap, then popped the car hood. Gene got out then, watching him frown over the machinery. It all looked so snakelike and alien. Gene didn’t think Paul knew what to check for as he leaned over and yanked up some kind of handle, a dipstick, maybe, then dropped it back down almost as soon as he’d gotten hold of it. 

“Shit, it’s hot under there.” A pause. “Just-- uh, turn it off now. I’m gonna try again.”

Gene shut off the engine, climbing back out immediately afterward.

“You have a tire gauge?”

“Paul, I don’t know what I’ve got in this car, besides the emergency stuff.”

“Take a look for me, will you? I’m trying to figure this out.” Again, he reached for the same dipstick, this time pulling it out all the way, frowning at the fluid left behind. “I… think it’s supposed to be higher than that… when’d you last drive this thing?”

“Months? We’ve been on tour. The auto guy comes and does maintenance--”

“Okay, okay.” Another dipstick. “Can you look at the tires for me?”

Gene looked, even poked at all four of them with his fingers. They seemed a bit skinned up, probably at least in part from when Paul had tried to hit the guardrail, but he didn’t see any holes. Paul did some digging around inside the car and eventually procured a tire gauge, although he had to look up how to use it.

“Tires aren’t that low, according to this,” he eventually mumbled after a haphazard inspection, pointing at the screen of Gene’s phone.

“What do you think the problem is?”

“I don’t know. It might be the transmission. Or the battery. If it’s the battery we might be able to get it jumped off.”

“You think we can keep driving it?”

“I dunno. I mean, I don’t wanna stop out here, but--”

“Was it getting harder to drive?”

“Not that I noticed. I just saw the light.”

They had only just hit Colorado, too. Gene was waiting on Paul to make a suggestion, only to realize that Paul wouldn’t. Only to realize that, overall, Paul hadn’t suggested too much of anything over the last several days. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Paul had called the shots in the band for years and years. Gene had let him do it, first out of disinterest and then out of some weird form of pity. But now it was all going back and back and back. Forty-five years back. Paul was depending on Gene’s input the same way he had when he was a teenager, when Gene’s input was mostly limited to deciding whether or not Paul’s song lyrics sucked.

Maybe it was something normal people did all the time, but Gene couldn’t remember driving a car with the check engine light on. Not ever. He’d only learned to drive twenty or so years prior, just before the windfall of the Reunion tour, and by then, he was in a position where he’d never be down to a single vehicle. He didn’t really enjoy driving at all-- Paul did, and Ace, too, despite all his car accidents. He hadn’t ever gotten comfortable enough with it to get a good feel for the machine.

But he’d heard those sounds. And Paul was concerned.

On the other hand, they were finally making almost okay time, under the circumstances. They were trying to get in more than those nine or ten hours of straight driving a day that they’d allotted themselves. They’d been able to refuel once that morning. One more state and they’d be halfway to Connecticut. If they decided to stop driving, there was no way they could get anyone they knew to try to find them, try to pick them up and take them to Peter’s. No way in the world. They’d be stuck until they could buy or snag another car.

“Let’s keep going. Swap with me. I’ll pull over if I get worried.”

“Okay.”

They managed to make it another five hundred miles before the transmission finally gave out.


	16. black and gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halfway to Connecticut, Gene’s car breaks down. Tensions build, and Ace and Peter have suggestions, but no solutions Gene really wants to pursue.

By that time, they’d completely depleted their supply of muffins and pastries from the hotel. Some bits of the lunches were still in okay shape, but others were starting to smell. Gene refused to throw any of them away, kept insistently eating them even when Paul kept trying to push the snack foods and stale popcorn and vending machine honey buns into his hand instead.

“You’re gonna get sick.”

“I won’t get sick. It’s only been a few days.”

“You’ll get sick and I don’t have any toilet paper for you.”

“That’s okay. I’ll just take your socks.”

“You are not wiping your ass with my socks!”

Gene had laughed. Paul looked so chagrined. His stubble was already inching its way towards a beard, one that was a bit less sprinkled with gray than Gene had expected. Gene had avoided any glancing in the car mirror beyond what he needed in order to drive, but those scant, unintentional glimpses told him he wasn’t too far behind, a salt-and-pepper mix that was mostly salt. No surprise there.

Halfway to Peter’s now. Nebraska looked as endless and grim as ever from all their money-burning tours in the secondary and tertiary markets, but it wasn’t quite as cold as he’d been expecting. Just in the forties. Gene could picture Peter’s place a little clearer now, too, the closer he was getting. Picturing it like it was, at least, back in the seventies. It had always been pretty. Inviting. Away from it all-- well, not entirely, but much closer than he and Paul managed in Beverly Hills. It spoke to the romantic in Peter, picking a place like that, with a healthy handful of woodsy acreage all to himself, instead of some glitzy condo in New York. He was still a city guy at heart, probably, but--

They hadn’t called Peter up yet. Shit. Paul had taken to texting Ace again over the last day or two of driving-- Gene had woken up on occasion to the light from the phone and the faint tap-tap-taps. He’d only ever glanced through the messages, feeling a bit seedy even doing that much, for all that it was his phone. They weren’t having any deep conversations, anyway. Paul was giving Ace their daily mileage and occasional commentary on the roads. If they’d had another late night talk, Gene wasn’t aware of it.

“You were wearing that the other day.” Paul gestured to his shirt. They’d pulled over for lunch. Paul was eating another of their dwindling stash of honey buns and chasing it down with the last of the stale popcorn.

“I’m out of clean clothes.”

“I’ll be out tomorrow.” Paul shook the popcorn bag, then dug through it, sifting through the kernels. He laughed nervously. “I keep trying to think of it like way back, you know, on tour when we started out. Just the Samsonite suitcases and a duffel bag.”

Gene nodded. He didn’t mention the fact that their clothes had been more weather-appropriate back then. They’d packed, obviously, for a cruise, and not for a cross-country trip in November. Gene had all of one long-sleeved shirt in his entire suitcase. Paul, from what he’d seen, didn’t have any, and most of what he’d worn so far hadn’t had sleeves at all. He had his jacket, sure, but he kept trying to give it to Gene most of the time. 

The cold was more bothersome at night and whenever else they had to turn the engine off. They’d been lucky, really. It had been in the forties, so they’d avoided any frost or ice. Hopefully that’d continue for the rest of their trip. The last thing they needed was a snowstorm.

“I used to be able to fit my whole life in two suitcases.” Paul was still talking. “All the clothes I had. I know Pete always thought I was a spoiled brat, but I didn’t really have a lot of--”

“Paul--”

“I’m not bitching. I know it’s not forever. We’ll get everything washed at some point.” Paul shifted. “Think we should start trying to air out our clothes at night, put them on the hood, something?”

“Fuck, no. They’d get stolen.”

“I don’t ever bring anything really nice to wear on the Kruises--”

“That doesn’t matter. Maury said someone had tried to break into his RV.”

“That’s just because it’s an RV. Of course people think he has a lot of stuff in there.”

“People already know we have a lot of money just by us driving this car. Putting our clothes out at night would be like sticking a neon sign on the hood.”

“You really worry too much.” Paul seemed amenable enough, though. “I’ll just drape them over the backseats, then, okay?”

“Go ahead.”

“Want me to lay out your clothes, too?”

“I don’t really care if my clothes stink, Paul.”

“Okay, okay.” Paul finished off the honey bun, then got out of the driver’s seat to crawl around in the back. Gene heard him unzip his luggage and fumble around. He couldn’t quite help turning around and watching Paul carefully arrange his pants and shirts along the armrests, headrests, and seats. It looked like the saddest bit of installation art he’d ever seen. Or maybe just a college student’s dorm. Thankfully, Paul didn’t deign to try to air out any of his thongs. “I’ll open the windows in the back a little, too, maybe that’ll help…”

So concerned over something so minute. Gene bobbed his head, and shook it when Paul asked if he wanted to swap and drive. Paul looked a little relieved at that, climbing back into the driver’s seat and turning the key, to the grinding sound Gene had first heard intermittently a few days ago. Paul winced, cautiously pulling back onto the road.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

“It’s been getting worse.”

“Fuck. I… let’s just… Gene, how many miles to the nearest hotel? Look it up on your phone.”

“Thirty-five.”

“Are you  _ serious _ ?”

“It might not even be open.”

Paul bit his lip. The car behind him was right on his bumper. He never let another car tail him like that if he could help it. Not that Gene had ever noticed.

“What about the nearest gas station?”

“Fifteen.”

“Okay.”

The driver behind them blew his horn. Paul didn’t even bother flipping him off.

“Paul, the car--”

“I’m trying to accelerate! It won’t do it anymore!” Paul almost shoved at the hazard lights button. He was breathing hard. “It’s the transmission! I’m gonna have to stop, I can’t do this.”

“Try and get off the--”

“I’m _ trying _ !”

The guy behind them was still blaring his horn, even with the hazard lights on. Paul managed, barely, to lurch the car over to the shoulder of the road, both of them watching dully as the whole line of cars sped past like chariots down the concrete.

\--

They sat there in the car with the engine still running for several minutes. Neither said anything. Neither looked at the other.

Halfway there. Fifteen hundred miles or so, dragging themselves through more than eleven, twelve hours on the road some days. Losing so much time to just trying to find gas stations. Running lower on food than they needed to. Stuck sleeping in their car. They’d borne all of that. Gene had thought that maybe they’d gone through the worst of it. Halfway there and the car had broken down.

Gene finally made the first move, picking up the phone.

“I’m calling Ace and Peter.”

Paul’s mouth wobbled.

“Don’t do that yet. Maybe we can--”

“I’m calling them.”

“Gene, they can’t get anybody over here to help us--”

“I’m not expecting them to. I’m putting us on speaker.” He tapped Ace’s name on the screen before Paul could protest. Ace answered within two rings.

“Hey, Gene.”

“Hey. Is Peter around?”

“He’s right here, you need to talk to him?”

“We’ve gotta talk to both of you.” A second’s rustling, and Gene could hear Peter grumbling something. “... Hey, Pete.”

He hadn’t spoken to Peter since the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and even then, it had been cursory. The usual dry pleasantries. Peter didn’t believe in faking his way through anything. He wouldn’t play overly nice for the cameras or the press. He didn’t like bullshit and he didn’t really care about PR. Last they’d seen each other, Peter had kept his distance almost entirely. Gene only really got a few sentences out of him that weren’t answers to the old how-are-you-how’s-Gigi-how’s-Jennilee.

“We should’ve played,” Peter had said, not looking anyone directly in the face, a couple hours before they took to the stage to accept. “You wouldn’t even give us that satisfaction. You’d take this away from us too, if you could.”

Gene hadn’t answered. Us.  _ Us _ and you. The eternal dividing lines. Those couple months ago, that one statement had rankled him badly. He’d felt like Peter was just being his usual sourpuss self, not recognizing a good thing when he had it, finding something to bitch about when he was getting an honor. Some terrible part of him had almost felt like Peter would’ve deserved to have it taken away, if that was his attitude. He hadn’t been in the band in years, yet here he was, accepting the nomination. Maybe the only ones who deserved it ought to be the ones that stuck with it. And anyway, ultimately, wasn’t it Peter’s fault that everything had fallen apart? Hadn’t he taken the crimefighting gig away from all of them second he’d been fired? Hadn’t his departure made the talismans inert and useless, just another piece of band history?

That was what Gene had thought back then. Paul even more so than Gene. But all that seemed so fucking paltry now. So petty Gene couldn’t even hang onto it. He just wanted to hear from him. He just wanted--

“About fucking time you decide to talk to me.” Peter’s heavy Brooklyn accent over the phone was a welcome relief.

“Ace said you didn’t wanna talk last time--”

“ _ Paul _ doesn’t wanna talk to me.”

“Peter, I’m right here,” Paul mumbled.

“We ran into a little trouble,” Gene said. “We may be delayed a bit.”

“Delayed? You had a car accident, didn’t you?”

“No--”

“Are you okay? Is Paul? You--”

“Our car broke down on us.” Gene swallowed. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it fixed.”

“You motherfucking  _ idiots _ !”

Beside him, Paul slumped in the car seat, shaking his head. Ace was half-yelling next, as close to rattled as he ever managed to get.

“What the hell happened? Did you get in a car accident? I thought Paul was doing all the driving!”

“We didn’t get in an accident! Something’s not working. We think it’s the transmission. We’re--”

“Where the hell are you guys?”

“Nebraska.”

“ _ Nebraska?! _ ” Peter spewed. “Your car broke down in fucking  _ Nebraska _ ?!”

“Pete, we’ll--”

“Nothing in fucking Nebraska! Nothing for miles! Shit, you ain’t even gonna find a fucking hotel over there!”

“Pete--”

“You’re gonna be stranded for  _ weeks _ !”

“Peter, you gotta take a breath, calm down, listen--” It was Ace, before Gene could manage another word. Peter was spewing right back.

“I ain’t gonna calm down, Ace! Gene, what the fuck were you thinking?”

“We didn’t plan for--”

“No shit, you didn’t! Christ!”

Beside him, Paul’s mouth was pinched tight. He reached for the phone, but Gene pushed at his hand.

“I’m not listening to this shit,” Paul snapped.

“Paul, he’s worried, he’s not--”

“What the fuck are you going to do?”

“Gene, hey, listen--I got an idea,” Ace intercut at the same time Peter was yelling, “Pete, gimme a sec--”

“Ace, we can’t fix the car.”

“I’m not saying fix the car. Post a tweet.”

“What?”

“Post a tweet and a picture of the area. I bet you can get a fan to pick you up.”

Gene hesitated, glancing over at Paul, who looked like he was seriously considering it. Gene shook his head.

“That’s way too much of a risk.”

“It’s not a risk!”

“The fans are crazy.”

“We got the best fans in the world. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying for forty fucking years?”

“Ace, I’m not gonna do it.”

“Wait, no, I think Ace has a point,” Paul said. Gene could only half believe it. Paul usually had a little more sense. “They’d wanna go out of their way for us. We might be able to get someone to drive us the whole--”

“ _ I’ve _ gotten fans to drive me places!” Ace interjected. “I get lost on the way to the venue sometimes, and--”

“It’s not safe! Especially not right now. You’re betting on something that’s not gonna help us anymore.”

“Not gonna help you? You’re still Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, even if the world’s on fucking fire.” Peter again, words absolutely soaked with venom. “You’ve never had a problem taking advantage of anybody. The hell are you balking for now? You too good to accept a ride from the people that made you rich?”

Paul reached for the phone again. This time, Gene was tempted to let him hang up.

“We’ll call you back later, all right? We’ll handle it from here.”

He almost didn’t hear Ace’s mumbled “be careful” before he ended the call.


End file.
